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

Hockanum, Massachusetts

44 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1885 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Hadley town. It lies in ZIP code area 01035. It sits by Titans Piazza. The Survey maps it on the Mount Holyoke quadrangle.

Hockanum within Hampshire County

Then and now

1885 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 100 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Hockanum, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of Hockanum, surveyed 1885

Topographic sheets covering this place

44 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Hadley town, in the words of 1898.

1898, Hadley Town

Quintin Stockwell

These few lines are to let you understand that we are arrived at Albany now with the captives, and we now stand in need of assistance, for my charges is very great and heavy; and therefore any that have any love to our condition, let it move them to come and help us in this strait. Three of the captives are murdered, - old Goodman Plympton, Samuel Foot's daughter,Samuel Russell.

Read the rest of this passage

Fires nearby

97 since 2001

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 97 fires within 5 miles of Hockanum between 2001 and 2020, burning about 316 acres in total. 11 started naturally. 5 were 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 use	30
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	28
Debris and open burning	12
Natural	11
Recreation and ceremony	10
Arson/incendiarism	5
Smoking	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
7 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
27 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
2 September 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
18 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sylvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge	MILL RV DIV MA-SCR #4
18 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sylvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge	MILL RV DIV MA-SCR #3
17 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sylvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge	MILL RV DIV MA-SCR #2
15 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Sylvio O. Conte National Wildlife Refuge	MILL RV DIV MA-SCR #1

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Hampshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 6,051 shown

Museums hold 6,051 specimens collected within 10 miles of Hockanum between 1781 and 1975: 3,069 Plantae, 1,543 Fungi, 1,231 Animalia, 134 Chromista, 64 Protozoa, 9 Unrecorded, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. Albee, A. Allen 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
Cercospora violae Sacc.	1895	Ralph E. Smith	Hothouse, Mass. Agr. College, Amherst
Actias luna Linnaeus, 1758	1896	not recorded
Plathemis lydia (Drury, 1773)	1896	not recorded
Carex argyrantha Tuck. ex Dewey	1781	H. G. Jesup	Amherst in Hampshire Co., and Leverett in Franklin Co., Massachusetts. [Inferred counties from precise loc.]
Carex foenea Willd.	1781	H. G. Jesup	And Leverett
Ustilago nuda (C.N.Jensen) Kellerm. & Swingle	1810	J.E. Humphrey
Carex bromoides Willd.	1831	Collector unknown
Ranunculus ambigens S.Watson	1831	S. Shurtleff
Carex vesicaria L.	1836	Collector unknown
Carex vestita Willd.	1836	Collector unspecified
Kalmia angustifolia f. angustifolia	1838	L. DeWette	Northampton.
Kalmia latifolia var. latifolia	1838	L. DeWette	Northampton.

All 6,051 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 20 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 20 workings within 5 miles of Hockanum: 12 producers, 7 past producers, 1 unknown. 12 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Stone, Dimension, Brick Clay, Clay. 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
Granite Rock Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
South Hadlay Sand	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Sandstone Quarry	Flagstone	Past Producer
Sandstone Quarry	Flagstone	Past Producer
Clay Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Clay Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Clay Pit	Clay	Past Producer
Clay Pit	Brick Clay	Producer	Clay
Clay Pit	Brick Clay	Producer	Clay
Clay Pit	Brick Clay	Producer	Clay

Every working recorded in Hampshire County

Storms nearby

2 since 2018

The National Weather Service names Hockanum in 2 storm reports between 2018 and 2026: 2 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
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Hockanum	$55,000	At 1:36 PM EST, a thunderstorm brought seven utility poles down on State Route 47 at the Hadley town line.
April 2026	Thunderstorm Wind	Hockanum	$1,000	In Hadley, multiple trees and power lines were down on Laurel Rd.

Every storm 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Thermopylae	0.8 miles	44
Mount Tom	0.8 miles	44
Moody Corner	2.5 miles	44
South Hadley	2.9 miles	44
Northampton	3.0 miles	42
East Hadley	3.4 miles	44
Great Swamp	3.4 miles	44
Hadley	3.5 miles	44

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 609021. 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.