Lunenburg, Massachusetts

The same ground, surveyed 95 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

1893 1988

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 1 record

• Lunenburg Historic Districtlisted 1988

Lunenburg grew from 1,760 to 1,789 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.

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.

• 1893 USGS Groton quadrangle1:62500, 8 printings
• 1935 USGS Groton quadrangle1:62500
• 1935 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:24000
• 1935 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:31680, 2 printings
• 1936 USGS Groton quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
• 1939 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:31680, 3 printings
• 1943 USGS Fitchburg quadrangle1:125000
• 1948 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
• 1949 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:25000
• 1950 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:24000
• 1955 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:25000, 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 Shirley quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
• 1965 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:24000
• 1975 USGS Shirley quadrangle1:25000
• 1984 USGS Lowell quadrangle1:100000
• 1988 USGS Ayer quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
• 1988 USGS Lowell quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, published 1889 names this settlement in its chapter on Lunenburg Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 142 fires within 5 miles of Lunenburg between 2015 and 2020, burning about 87 acres in total. 1 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.

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

• Whalom
• Fitchburg
• South Fitchburg
• West Fitchburg
• Blackburn Village
• Goodrichville

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,866 specimens collected within 10 miles of Lunenburg between 1870 and 1974: 1,134 Animalia, 467 Plantae, 199 Fungi, 49 Protozoa, 11 Unrecorded, 6 Chromista. 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
	Exidia glandulosa (Bull.) Fr.	1896	F. O. Grover	Prospect Hill
	Carex maritima Gunnerus	1870	J. W. Congdon	Wellville
	Hylesinus aculeatus Say & T., 1824	1872	unknown	Fitchburg
	Megascops asio asio (Linnaeus, 1758)	1879	Smith, J. C.; Thomas Wilmer Dewing collection	Groton
	Papaver orientale L.	1880	unknown	Townsend.
	Strix varia varia Barton, 1799	1880	Smith, J. C.; Thomas Wilmer Dewing collection	Groton
	unnamed	1881	Sargent, F. L.	Groton, Mass. [Massachusetts]
	Conocephalum conicum (L.) Underw.	1881	Charles W. Swan
	Hypericum gentianoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.	1881	Fredrick L Sargent	Lunenburg
	Nitella megacarpa (T.F.A.) R.D.W.	1881	T. F. Allen	Nashua River
	Arthuriomyces peckianus (Howe) Cummins & Y.Hirats.	1892	W. B. Hosmer
	Phyllosticta kalmicola (Schwein.) Ellis & Everh.	1894	H. L. Jones

All 1,866 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of Lunenburg: 7 past producers, 2 producers, 1 occurrence, 1 unknown. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Tin, Lithium, Geothermal. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Lunenburg in 16 storm reports between 1997 and 2024: 12 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail. 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.

Every storm recorded in Worcester County

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

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.

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 610772. 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.