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

Enfield, Massachusetts

32 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Ware town. It lies in ZIP code area 01082. It stands on Little Quabbin Island. The Survey maps it on the Winsor Dam quadrangle. The federal gazetteer marks this settlement historical: it is no longer a populated place, though the surveys that recorded it still are.

Enfield within Hampshire County

Then and now

1887 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 98 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Enfield (historical), surveyed 1985
Topographic sheet of Enfield (historical), surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

32 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

6,162 words on this township

Geology of Old Hampshire County, Massachusetts : Comprising Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties, published 1898 names this settlement in its chapter on Ware Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

This fixes the position of the fibrolite-schist as the equivalent of the upper mica-schist, as does the fact that it lies in continuation of the micaschists in Enfield, and the latter are the only beds sufficiently argillaceous to have furnished material for so much aluminous silicate. These same mica-schists grade eastward into fibrolite-schist and continue across Worcester County, but they are rarely so coarse as here,

Passage source: Geology of Old Hampshire County, Massachusetts : Comprising Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties, published 1898.

A naiToM' s>-iu'liue comes out from beneath the sands east of Greenwich village and near the east line of Greenwich. Traces of it appear to the north, mostly covered by sand, along- the roadside east of Warner's pond. It makes tlie high hill which extends down the east line of Greeiiwich and Enfield, and is well exposed along- the road running east from Enfield. Here, near W. N. Avery's, the fibrolite-schist is a nearly pure bucholzite, in thick layers, in a fine-grained feldspathic quartzite without brown mica, gi'aphite, or garnet. As it lies immediately above the amphibolite it occupies the position of the whetstone-schist. The center of the series is occupied by the rusty mica-schist, while on the west there is a dull-greenish graphitegarnet-muscovite-schist and a granulite with its gai-nets bordered by green, and both these beds indicate the presence of the basal beds below the amphibolite, but not in thickness sufficient to be put upon the map. In Ware this terrane is well exposed between the town farm and the schoolhouse to the west.

Passage source: Geology of Old Hampshire County, Massachusetts : Comprising Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties, published 1898.

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 Ware Town.

Fires near this place

21 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 21 fires within 5 miles of Enfield (historical) between 2004 and 2020, burning about 12 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None 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
Equipment and vehicle use12
Missing data/not specified/undetermined3
Natural2
Recreation and ceremony2
Debris and open burning2

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
10 September 2016Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
20 August 2020Naturalunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlLITTLE QUABBIN ISLAND FIRE
9 July 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 May 2015Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 May 2015Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 May 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
2 May 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
9 April 2017Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Hampshire County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,601 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,601 specimens collected within 10 miles of Enfield (historical) between 1831 and 1975: 811 Plantae, 492 Animalia, 257 Fungi, 39 Chromista, 2 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. C. Gibson, A. Clark, A. E. Touey 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Puccinia asparagi DC.Puccinia asparagi DC.1896G. M. StoneAmherst
A photograph of the species Ranunculus ambigens, not of this specimenRanunculus ambigens S.Watson1831S. Shurtleff
A photograph of the species Elodea nuttallii, not of this specimenElodea nuttallii (Planch.) H.St.John1847H. G. Jesup
A photograph of the species Biatora sanguineoatra, not of this specimenBiatora sanguineoatra (Wulfen) Tuck.1848Tuckerman Edward
A photograph of the species Krigia virginica, not of this specimenKrigia virginica (L.) Willd.1857not recorded
A photograph of the species Carex cephalophora, not of this specimenCarex cephalophora Muhl. ex Willd.1858J. Blake
A photograph of the species Carex vestita, not of this specimenCarex vestita Willd.1858J. BlakeWare
A photograph of the species Castilleja coccinea, not of this specimenCastilleja coccinea (L.) Spreng.1858A. P. Chute
A photograph of the species Celastrus scandens, not of this specimenCelastrus scandens L.1858s.coll.
A photograph of the species Parnassia glauca, not of this specimenParnassia glauca Raf.1858R. Mock
A photograph of the species Polygaloides paucifolia, not of this specimenPolygaloides paucifolia (Willd.) J.R.Abbott1858R. Mock
A photograph of the species Ranunculus flabellaris, not of this specimenRanunculus flabellaris Raf.1858A. P. Chute

All 1,601 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Enfield (historical): 1 past producer, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Andrews MineIronOccurrence1871
Belchertown PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Hampshire 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
West Ware3.0 miles32
Packardville3.4 miles32
South Quabbin Villa3.5 miles32
Knights Corner4.4 miles32
Belchertown4.5 miles32
Highland Glen Estates4.8 miles32
Ware Center4.8 miles32
Cold Spring5.0 miles35

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 Enfield (historical)An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q5377276The 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 617477. 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.