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

Graniteville, Massachusetts

43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Westford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01886. It stands on Boutwell Brook. The Survey maps it on the Westford quadrangle.

Graniteville within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Graniteville, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Graniteville, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

43 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

17,609 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Westford Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Next, perhaps, in prominence stands the name of James Prescott, Jr. He was the youngest son of Colonel James Prescott, of G roton, and was born there, April 19, 1766. He was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1788; read law and commenced the practice of his profession in Westford, where he was residing at the time the academy was started, and Avhere he spent about ten years. He filled the office of secretary of the board of trustees for many years, and was succeeded by Rev. Caleb Blake. He was the president of the board from 1815 to 1837.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

John Wright, Esq., was a native of Westford, a sou of Mr. Nathan Wright, born in 1797. He fitted for college at Phillips' Academy, Andover, and graduated at Cambridge in 1833. He came to Westford, and took the place of the late Judge Charles P. Huntington, who had been preceptor for 1833 -2.J. After two years' service he went to Groton, studied law, and practised a few years, tiien became agent of the Sufi'olk 3\Iills, in Lowell. He died in 1869.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

We can only allude to one more of the past teachers,- - Hon. Juliii D. Long of Hingham, now governor of this state. After graduating from Harvard University, in 1857, he came at once to Westford, where he remained two years. Quitting this vocation, he studied law in Boston, and commenced its practice there. He is now president of the board of trustees.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, 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 Westford Town - it names this place 6 more 6 times.

Fires near this place

44 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 44 fires within 5 miles of Graniteville between 2015 and 2020, burning about 37 acres in total. 1 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	22
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	17
Recreation and ceremony	2
Railroad operations and maintenance	1
Natural	1
Arson/incendiarism	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
6 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 July 2015	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 June 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
18 June 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	NEEDHAM
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
5 May 2020	Debris and open burning	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 459 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 459 specimens collected within 10 miles of Graniteville between 1898 and 1975: 294 Animalia, 62 Plantae, 62 Protozoa, 35 Fungi, 3 Unrecorded, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Gibson, A. F. Newton 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
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Galium tinctorium (L.) Scop.	1899	not recorded
Oryzopsis asperifolia Michx.	1899	J M Greenman
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Boletus frostii J.L.Russell	1900	A. W. Flint
Cenchrus spinifex Cav.	1900	C. H. Knowlton	N Chelmsford.
Dicranum scoparium Hedw.	1900	A. B. Seymour
Alabama argillacea (Hübner, 1823)	1930	not recorded	Lowell
Alopecurus aequalis Sobol.	1930	M. L. Fernald; C. A. Weatherby
Carex communis var. communis	1930	E. J. Palmer	Rocky banks, top of Hemlock Hill. [Inferred locality from precise loc.]
Carex nigra (L.) Reichard	1930	R J Eaton
Cistothorus stellaris (J.F.Naumann, 1823)	1930	Collector(s): James Lee Peters	Harvard

All 459 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 26 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 26 workings within 5 miles of Graniteville: 17 past producers, 8 producers, 1 plant. 9 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Graphite, 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
Fiber Matls Plant--Graniteville, Ma	Graphite	Plant
West Chelmsford Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Fletcher Westford Quarry	Granite	Producer
Forest Road Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Guilmette Bros Granite	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
H E Fletcher Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Le Masurier Granite Quarry Inc	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Le Masurier Quarry and Mill	Granite	Producer
North Chelmsford Quarry	Granite	Producer
Oak Hill Quarry	Granite	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this place

2 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Graniteville in 2 storm reports between 2014 and 2023: 1 flood, 1 lightning. 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
June 2023	Lightning	Graniteville	$6,000	In Westford, a lightning strike caused damage to the side of a house on River Street.
March 2014	Flood	Graniteville	-	Gould Road was closed due to flooding.

Every storm 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
Camp Wakitatina	0.7 miles	43
Camp Nashoba	0.9 miles	43
Camp Cielo Celeste	1.0 miles	43
Westford Station	1.4 miles	43
Forge Village	1.7 miles	43
Westford	1.7 miles	43
Nabnasset	2.5 miles	43
East Littleton	2.5 miles	43

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611234. 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.