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

Harbor Beach, Massachusetts

35 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1885 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Mattapoisett town. It lies in ZIP code area 02739. It stands on Haskell Island. The Survey maps it on the Marion quadrangle.

Harbor Beach within Plymouth County

Then and now

1885 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 109 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Harbor Beach, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet of Harbor Beach, surveyed 1885

Topographic sheets covering this place

35 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

24 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 24 fires within 5 miles of Harbor Beach between 2015 and 2020, burning about 8 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 burning14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined6
Misuse of fire by a minor3
Smoking1

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
1 August 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMATTAPOISETT
3 July 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMATTAPOISETT
2 July 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
26 June 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMATTAPOISETT
2 June 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
10 June 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMARION
4 May 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMARION
2 May 2017Misuse of fire by a minorunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Plymouth County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 3,023 shown

Museums hold 3,023 specimens collected within 10 miles of Harbor Beach between 1824 and 1975: 1,210 Animalia, 822 Fungi, 820 Plantae, 132 Chromista, 33 Bacteria, 6 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Mathieson, A. Clark 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
A photograph of the species Gamochaeta purpurea, not of this specimenGamochaeta purpurea (L.) Cabrera1824T. A. Greene
A photograph of the species Lythrum salicaria, not of this specimenLythrum salicaria L.1831T. A. Greene
A photograph of the species Mentha aquatica, not of this specimenMentha aquatica L.1831Collector unknownNew Bedford. [Inferred county from precise loc.]
A photograph of the species Trypethelium virens, not of this specimenTrypethelium virens Tuck.1848ex herb. OakesNew Bedford.
A photograph of the species Endocarpon pusillum, not of this specimenEndocarpon pusillum Hedw.1858H. WilleyFort Phoenix. Fairhaven.
A photograph of the species Chilomycterus geometricus, not of this specimenChilomycterus geometricus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)1860unknownBuzzards Bay
A photograph of the species Menegazzia terebrata, not of this specimenMenegazzia terebrata (Hoffm.) A.Massal.1860H. WilleyNew Bedford
A photograph of the species Abrothallus parmeliarum, not of this specimenAbrothallus parmeliarum (Sommerf.) Nyl., 18691862Willey H.Weymouth, New Bedford
A photograph of the species Agyrium rufum, not of this specimenAgyrium rufum (Pers.) Fr.1862Willey HenryNew Bedford
Agapostemon sericeus (Förster, 1771)1899William WheelerNew Bedford
A photograph of the species Alosa aestivalis, not of this specimenAlosa aestivalis (Mitchill, 1814)1899B. Bean & V. EdwardsMassachusetts, Buzzards Bay
A photograph of the species Aluterus schoepfii, not of this specimenAluterus schoepfii (Walbaum, 1792)1899not recordedWest Falmouth, Massachusetts

All 3,023 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

3 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Harbor Beach: 3 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Albert WintersSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Rochester PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Wareham PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Plymouth County

Storms nearby

2 since 2012

The National Weather Service names Harbor Beach in 2 storm reports between 2012 and 2014: 1 flash flood, 1 flood. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
March 2014FloodHarbor Beach-One lane of County Road was closed due to flooding. In addition, water was flooding a yard along County Road. The breakdown lane and slow travel lane were flooded on Front Street and Route 105 South at the Interstate 195 junction.
October 2012Flash FloodHarbor Beach-In Marion, Route 6 and the fire department were flooded. In Wareham, Route 28 was flooded and impassable in front of the 99 Restaurant and a pharmacy.

Every storm recorded in Plymouth 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
Alms House0.1 miles35
Holly Woods0.7 miles35
Crescent Beach1.7 miles35
Cannonville2.0 miles35
Marion2.1 miles35
Piney Point Beach2.8 miles39
Mattapoisett3.0 miles35
Shell Beach3.0 miles35

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 614823. 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.