Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

East Pepperell, Massachusetts

39 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Pepperell town. It lies in ZIP code area 01463. It stands on Varnum Brook. The Survey maps it on the Pepperell quadrangle. 2,120 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 226 feet above sea level.

East Pepperell within Middlesex County

Population over time

2 figures

East Pepperell grew from 2,059 to 2,120 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	2,059
2020	2,120	+61 (+3%)

Then and now

1893 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 95 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of East Pepperell, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of East Pepperell, surveyed 1893

Compare 1893 against another survey:

Topographic sheets covering this place

39 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

24,897 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Pepperell Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

William Prescott was bom in Groton Centre, February 20, 1726, but before he was of age had removed to the West Parish, and taken a farm in the tract called Groton Gore. He had been a lieutenant of provincial troops in 1755, and on his return from the expedition to Nova Scotia had been promoted to a captaincy.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, published 1880.

About nine o'clock on the morning of April 19> 1775, a messenger fi'om Concord arrived in Pepperell with tidings of the fight at Lexington, and the advance of the redcoats towards Concord. Colonel . Prescott immediately gave orders to the companies in Pepperell and in Hollis to march to Groton, and join the other companies there. So well prepared were the Pepperell minute-men, and so ready for such an emergency, tliat they arrived at the Groton rendezvous, five miles distant, before the company there was ready to march y and after a halt of a few minutes they marched on without waiting for the other companies.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, published 1880.

Maine when the messenger arrived at his father's house., His father ran out into the field, and mounting a hirge rock called to his son, who returned to the house, changed bis clothes, took his gun» and started tawards Concord. ,^

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Pepperell Town.

Fires near this place

30 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 30 fires within 5 miles of East Pepperell between 2014 and 2020, burning about 11 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	17
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	8
Smoking	2
Recreation and ceremony	1
Arson/incendiarism	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
26 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 July 2016	Recreation and ceremony	1.3 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	ANDOVER
2 July 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	New Hampshire Division of Forest and Lands	not named
26 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
11 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
10 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 194 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 194 specimens collected within 10 miles of East Pepperell between 1900 and 1975: 74 Animalia, 62 Protozoa, 29 Plantae, 24 Fungi, 4 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. F. Newton, A. F. Newton, M. K. Thayer, A. K. Moore and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Pholiota carbonaria (Fr.) Singer	1900	H. Webster	Groton.
unnamed	1926	F.A. Gilbert
Anavitrinella pampinaria (Guenée, 1857)	1926	not recorded	Lunenburg
Arcyria cinerea (Bull.) Pers., 1801	1926	Collector unspecified
Arcyria denudata (L.) Wettst., 1886	1926	F.A. Gilbert
Alopecurus aequalis Sobol.	1930	M. L. Fernald; C. A. Weatherby
Epitheca cynosura (Say, 1840)	1930	Davis, E. M.	MA, Middlesex Co., Shirley
Hemaris thysbe Fabricius, 1775	1930	not recorded	Lunenburg
Coccyzus erythropthalmus (A.Wilson, 1811)	1950	Collector(s): James Lee Peters	Groton
Cladara atroliturata (Walker, 1862)	1974	not recorded	Dunstable
Crematogaster Lund, 1831	1974	E. V. Gregg	Wayside park, 6 mi E of Los Fresnos
Hybomitra cincta (Fabricius, 1794)	1974	not recorded	Dunstable, Westford St

All 194 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of East Pepperell: 8 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Black Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
J L Construction Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Pepperell Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Seven Oaks Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Seven Oaks Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Sharon Contracting Tc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Tacey Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Tenney Street Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Babbatasset Village	0.3 miles	39
Four Corners	0.7 miles	39
Pepperell	0.8 miles	39
Hovey Corner	1.8 miles	39
Burkinshaws Factory	2.1 miles	39
North Pepperell	2.1 miles	39
South Pepperell	2.3 miles	39
Paper Mill Village	3.0 miles	39

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on East Pepperell	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q5329136	The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611110. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.