BlockLancaster, Massachusetts
43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Lancaster town. It lies in ZIP code area 01523. It stands on Ropers Brook. The Survey maps it on the Clinton quadrangle. 8,441 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 299 feet above sea level.
Then and now
1887 to 1997The same ground, surveyed 110 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
Compare 1887 against another survey:
On record in Lancaster
Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.
On the National Register 12 records
First Church of Christ, LancasterNational Historic Landmark · listed 1970
Atherton Bridgelisted 1979
Center Village Districtlisted 1977
Founder's Halllisted 1980
Lancaster Industrial School for Girlslisted 1976
Anthony Lane Houselisted 1976
Middle Cemeterylisted 2019
North Village Historic Districtlisted 1977
Old Settlers' Burying Groundlisted 2019
Ponakin Bridgelisted 1979
Nathaniel Thayer Estatelisted 1976- Eastwood Cemetery (Additional Documentation)listed 2024
Surveyed buildings and structures 4 records
- Atherton Bridge, Spanning Nashua River on Bolton Road, Lancasterfederal building survey, 22 photographs
- First Parish Church, Stables, Town Green, Thayer Drive, Lancasterfederal building survey, 4 photographs
- First Parish Church, Town Green, Thayer Drive, Lancasterfederal building survey, 17 photographs
- Ponakin Road Bridge, Spanning Nashua River on Ponakin Road, Lancasterfederal building survey, 19 photographs
Population over time
2 figuresLancaster grew from 8,055 to 8,441 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 8,055 | |
| 2020 | 8,441 | +386 (+5%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
20 surveys from 43 printed sheetsMatched 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.
- 1887 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500
- 1889 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500
- 1896 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500
- 1898 USGS Marlboro quadrangle1:62500, 8 printings
- 1908 USGS Quinsigamond quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
- 1943 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:31680, 3 printings
- 1943 USGS Quinsigamond quadrangle1:125000
- 1948 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1950 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
- 1950 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:31680, 2 printings
- 1956 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 6 printings
- 1958 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1961 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1965 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:25000
- 1965 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:24000
- 1975 USGS Clinton quadrangle1:25000
- 1985 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000
- 1988 USGS Hudson quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
- 1989 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
- 1997 USGS Hudson quadrangle1:25000
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Lancaster town. The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.
History Op W0R0E3Ter County, Massachusetts
of war, generally proved faithful to the English, and their services as scouts were invaluable. Among these none deserves better to be honored in Lancaster story than James Wiser, alias Quanapaug or Quanapohit, whose courage and fidelity would have saved the town from the massacre of 1676, had not his timely warning been unwisely discredited by the apparently lethargic Governor and his slumberous Council.
In the county-history sources
29,485 words on this townshipHistory of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889 names this settlement in its chapter on Lancaster Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.
At how early a date the pioneer pale-face first looked down from its southern barrier of hills upon Sholan's beautiful domain is not known. John Winthrop relates that the Watertown people began a settlement at Nashaway in 1643. Before that Thomas King had accepted the invitation of the sachem, and selected a location for a trading post on the sunny slope of George Hill, near the parting of two trails which led from the " wading-place" of Nashaway, westward to Wachusett, and southwesterly by Washacum to the land of the Quabaugs. King was a young man. of limited means, and had formed a partnership with Henry Symonds, a freeman, a capitalist, and an enterprising contractor, living near the head of what is now North Street, in Boston. By a little brook that came brawling down the divide over which the western trail ran, the trucking-house was built, probably in 1642, certainly before the summer of 1643. Symonds, the moneyed partner, died in September of 1643, and King survived him little more than a year. In the inventory of King's property there is no hint of any estate at Lancaster. This is confirmation of the statement made by Rev. Timothy Harrington in 1753 - doubtless recording a tradition - that a company bought such proprietary rights at Nashaway as King had obtained by his bargain with Sholan. No deed of a sale is foun<l, but the price of the grant, as agreed upon with the Indians, was twelve pounds. The territory acquired was nominally ten miles long from south to north, by eight miles wide. It included a few families of Indians, dwelling about the rivers and ponds, though these, perhaps, joined the Washacum village, when, in 1663 and 1669, the warriors of the tribe were decimated in contest with the bloodthirsty Mohawks. A provision in Sholan's deed, however, restricted the purchasers and their successors from "molesting the Indians in their hunting, fishing, or usual planting places." Joint occupancy was the evident intent of the conveyance. *
Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889.
Branch. Prescott, who had chosen his first home-lot in the eastern range, covering the site of the present Lancaster House, sold it to Ralph Houghton and made his home at the trucking-house. Philip Knight, of Charlestown, built a house on the lot which he bought of Steven Day, adjoining Prescott's on the north, and upon the next two lots were John and Solomon Johnson, of Sudbury, a roadway separating their dwellings. Upon the south corner of Solomon Johnson's lot now stands the George Hill Schoolhouse. Thomas Sav/yer, a blacksmith of Rowley, married Mary, the daughter of Prescott, in 1647 or 1648, and set up a home near his father-in-law, in a range of lots parallel to and south of those above named. Mrs. Sally Case's residence is nearly upon the site of the Sawyer house. These were probably the first five dwellings south of the North River. William Kerley perhaps moved upon his house-lot in the upper range not much later, and Daniel Hudson, a brickmaker from Watertown, occupied John Moore's lot certainly as early as the spring of 1651.
Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889.
On the Neck side, Lawrence Waters sold his house to John Hall, whose wife Elizabeth occupied it, her husband going to England. Waters built himself a second house nearer the shallows in the river, a few rods west of the one sold. Ralph Houghton soon came up from Watertown and set up his roof-tree on the Neck. A petition of the inhabitants to the General Court of May, 1652, asking township rights, states that there were already living at Nashaway " about nine farailyes." They must be selected from those already named. Before this date there had probably been ten white children born in the settlement: two to Prescott, five to Lawrence Waters, two to Sawyer, and one to Daniel Hudson. The answer to the petition is the so-called Act of Incorporation of the Town of Lancaster. The first draft of the answer was passed upon by the deputies in May, 1652, and in this the name given to the town was Prescott, as had been requested by the petitioners, paying deserved honor to their generous, spirited and able leader.
Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889.
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 Lancaster Town - it names this place 112 more 112 times.
Photographs
1 photograph,Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.
Photographer not recorded. Library of Congress
Fires near this place
112 since 2002Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 112 fires within 5 miles of Lancaster between 2002 and 2020, burning about 2,730 acres in total. None started naturally. 3 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 |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 54 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 26 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 18 |
| Smoking | 5 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 4 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 3 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 September 2015 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 5 September 2016 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 30 August 2015 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 22 August 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 18 August 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 18 August 2016 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
| 14 August 2002 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 300 acres | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | DEVENS |
| 10 August 2015 | Equipment and vehicle use | under an acre | Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control | not named |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Specimens collected near this place
12 of 2,158 shownRegional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 2,158 specimens collected within 10 miles of Lancaster between 1859 and 1974: 1,278 Animalia, 532 Plantae, 329 Fungi, 10 Unrecorded, 8 Chromista, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Gibson, A. Ferrett 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 | Species | Year | Collected by | Where, as recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Chrysosplenium americanum Schwein. ex Hook. | 1899 | E. F. Williams | |
 | Condylura cristata cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) | 1859 | E S Wheeler | BERLIN |
 | Dryobates pubescens medianus (Swainson, 1832) | 1861 | not recorded | Bolton |
| Clemmys insculpta Fitzinger, 1835 | 1864 | Agassiz | ||
 | Bromus sterilis L. | 1879 | C. E. Faxon | |
 | Merulius lacrymans (Wulfen) Schumach. | 1879 | Howes, A. | Massachusetts |
 | Hypericum gentianoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb. | 1881 | Fredrick L Sargent | Lunenburg |
 | Icterus galbula (Linnaeus, 1758) | 1881 | G. L. Brigham | Bolton |
| Nitella megacarpa (T.F.A.) R.D.W. | 1881 | T. F. Allen | Nashua River | |
| Arthuriomyces peckianus (Howe) Cummins & Y.Hirats. | 1892 | W. B. Hosmer | ||
 | Castilleja coccinea (L.) Spreng. | 1892 | E. C. Smith | Marboro. |
| Tyrannus tyrannus (Linnaeus, 1758) | 1892 | G.L. Brigham | Bolton |
All 2,158 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.
Mines and quarries near this place
9 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 9 workings within 5 miles of Lancaster: 5 past producers, 3 producers, 1 prospect. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Zinc. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Where | Site | Commodity | Status | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sterling Prospect | Iron, Zinc | Prospect | ||
| Bolton Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Kanis Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Lancaster Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Landfill Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Landfill Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Spratts Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | ||
| Sterling Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Producer | ||
| Town of Sterling Pit | Sand and Gravel, Construction | Past Producer | Sedimentary |
Storms near this place
8 since 2005Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lancaster in 8 storm reports between 2005 and 2026: 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 hail, 1 funnel cloud. 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 2016 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lancaster | $25,000 | Trees and wires were downed by thunderstorm winds throughout town. |
| April 2026 | Thunderstorm Wind | South Lancaster | $10,000 | In Lancaster, a tree was down on a house near Crescent St. |
| August 2005 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lancaster | $5,000 | no account filed |
| May 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | South Lancaster | $4,000 | In Lancaster, a tree was down on a house on Charlotte Street. |
| July 2017 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lancaster | $1,000 | At 110 PM EST, a large tree was down blocking Bolton Station Road. |
| June 2020 | Thunderstorm Wind | Lancaster | $800 | In Lancaster, a tree and wires were down on Neck Road. |
| July 2010 | Funnel Cloud | Lancaster | - | Several spotters reported a funnel cloud near Lancaster. |
| July 2008 | Hail | Lancaster | - | no account filed |
Newspapers printed here
1 paper1 paper published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
| Newspaper | Published |
|---|---|
| Lancaster Gazette | 1828 to 1830 |
What the paper printed
22,585 wordsFront pages of the local paper, read from the Library of Congress scans: 5 issues spread across its run from 1828 to 1830, 22,585 words in total. Each is reproduced on its own page, exactly as the recogniser returned it.
These pages read less well than anything else here, and the number is worth stating: about three words in four come through cleanly, against nine in ten for the building records. An 1896 broadsheet sets eight-point type in seven columns on microfilm, which is the hardest thing in this archive to read by machine. We tested our own recognisers against the Library's and they were not better, so the Library's text is what appears, with the wholly unreadable columns removed. Read it as a guide to what the paper covered, and follow the link to the scan before quoting anything.
| Issue | Paper | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1828-03-04 | Lancaster Gazette | 4,527 words |
| 1828-05-06 | Lancaster Gazette | 4,303 words |
| 1828-09-02 | Lancaster Gazette | 4,701 words |
| 1828-11-04 | Lancaster Gazette | 4,698 words |
| 1830-04-13 | Lancaster Gazette | 4,356 words |
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 | Place | Distance | Sheets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five Corners | 0.9 miles | 43 | |
| North Village | 1.0 miles | 43 | |
| South Lancaster | 1.1 miles | 43 | |
| Ponakin Mill | 1.9 miles | 43 | |
| Ebenville | 2.0 miles | 43 | |
| Fullerville (historical) | 2.1 miles | 43 | |
| Clinton | 2.7 miles | 43 | |
| Seventh Day Adventist Village | 2.9 miles | 43 |
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 Lancaster | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q2427213 | 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 610873. 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.