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

Farnams, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1998. It stands in Cheshire town. It lies in ZIP code area 01225. It stands on Collins Brook. The Survey maps it on the Cheshire quadrangle.

Farnams within Berkshire County

Then and now

1886 to 1998

The same ground, surveyed 112 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Farnams, surveyed 1998

Topographic sheet of Farnams, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

40 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.

Fires nearby

31 since 2008

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 31 fires within 5 miles of Farnams between 2008 and 2018, burning about 146 acres in total. None 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
Debris and open burning	20
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Recreation and ceremony	3
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Smoking	2

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
29 August 2017	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
14 June 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
13 June 2017	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
13 June 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 May 2015	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 May 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
25 May 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 May 2016	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Berkshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 937 shown

Museums hold 937 specimens collected within 10 miles of Farnams between 1835 and 1975: 461 Plantae, 258 Animalia, 210 Fungi, 6 Unrecorded, 2 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A K Harrison, A Schwartz, A. K. Harrison 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
Bombus ternarius Say, 1837	1898	[Not Stated]	Hinsdale
Persicaria amphibia (L.) Delarbre	1835	C. A. Shurtleff	Pittsfield
Coptis trifolia (L.) Salisb.	1855	Smer	Williamstown Map - Mt. Greylock
Solidago patula Muhl. ex Willd.	1858	Brewer; Chickering
Carex aestivalis M.A.Curtis ex A.Gray	1865	Boott, M.	Saddle Mountain, Williamstown [Mount Greylock]
Carex novae-angliae Schwein.	1865	W. Boott	Saddle Ball Mountain
Homalia jamesii Schimp.	1867	unknown	Waconah Falls State Park
Potentilla fruticosa L.	1868	Redfield, J.H.	Pittsfield
Carex communis var. communis	1874	J. H. Redfield	Borders of woods, Pittsfield. [Inferred county from precise loc.]
Euphorbia cyparissias L.	1874	Redfield, John H.	Pittsfield; [illegible].
Archilochus colubris (Linnaeus, 1758)	1897	Hoag, B	Stephentown
Puccinia grossulariae Lagerh.	1898	Churchill	Adams

All 937 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 24 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 24 workings within 5 miles of Farnams: 14 past producers, 6 producers, 2 occurrences, 1 unknown. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Limestone, General, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
United States Gypsum Co Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
United States Gypsum Company Marble Quarry	Limestone, General	Producer	Stratabound
Bennett Prospect	Iron	Occurrence	Limonite
Bennett Prospect	Iron	Past Producer	Residual
Bennett Prospect	Iron	Prospect
Bliss Mine	Iron	Producer	1782
Bliss Mine	Iron	Past Producer
Bliss Mine/Jagger Mine	Iron	Past Producer	Residual
Colby Mine	Iron	Past Producer	Residual
Colby Mine	Iron	Producer	1856

Every working recorded in Berkshire County

Storms nearby

5 since 2016

The National Weather Service names Farnams in 5 storm reports between 2016 and 2022: 5 thunderstorm wind. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Farnams	-	A large tree was reported down blocking Old Cheshire Rd.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Farnams	-	A tree was downed across Route 8 near the Town of Lanesborough.
February 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Farnams	-	A tree was down on a car in Green Acres on Route 8.
August 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Farnams	-	A large tree was downed near Camp Mohawk.
September 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Farnams	-	A tree and wires were downed in the Farnams section of Cheshire due to thunderstorm winds.

Every storm recorded in Berkshire 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
Camp Mohawk	1.0 miles	40
Cheshire	1.8 miles	40
Berkshire	2.0 miles	40
Greylock Estates	2.2 miles	40
Lanesborough	2.8 miles	40
Town Crest Village	3.1 miles	40
Arnoldville	4.2 miles	40
Pontoosuc Gardens	4.2 miles	37

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.

Wikidata item Q122551201

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 607412. 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.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.