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

Medfield, Massachusetts

43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Medfield town. It lies in ZIP code area 02052. It stands on Mount Nebo. The Survey maps it on the Medfield quadrangle. 6,939 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 187 feet above sea level.

Medfield within Norfolk County

Population over time

2 figures

Medfield grew from 6,483 to 6,939 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. 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	6,483
2020	6,939	+456 (+7%)

Then and now

1887 to 1989

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 Medfield, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Medfield, surveyed 1887

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.

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.

The Peak House, Main Street, Medfield, Norfolk County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Fires nearby

90 since 2007

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 90 fires within 5 miles of Medfield between 2007 and 2020, burning about 32 acres in total. 3 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	27
Recreation and ceremony	26
Debris and open burning	18
Smoking	9
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Natural	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Arson/incendiarism	1
Equipment and vehicle use	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
9 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DOVER
26 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
25 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MEDFIELD
22 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
18 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
12 September 2017	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	WALPOLE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 9,105 shown

Museums hold 9,105 specimens collected within 10 miles of Medfield between 1832 and 1975: 4,413 Animalia, 2,433 Plantae, 2,042 Fungi, 146 Protozoa, 37 Chromista, 29 Unrecorded, 5 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. A. Eaton, A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & A. C. Seymour 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
Hypoprepia fucosa Hübner, 1831	1900	not recorded	Sherborn
Bartramia pomiformis Hedw.	1832	C. E. Cummings
Galium verum L.	1846	Kupell
Dichanthelium acuminatum var. acuminatum	1849	Ernest Charles Smith	Framingham.
Ameiurus nebulosus (Lesueur, 1819)	1852	S. Baird	Framingham, Massachusetts.
Boleosoma fusiforme Girard, 1854	1852	S. Baird	Framingham, Massachusetts.
Pristiphora Latreille, 1810	1856	not recorded
Grammia arge Drury, 1773	1867	not recorded	Sherborn
Polygonum coccineum Muhl. ex Willd.	1869	Morong, T.	Natick
Carex swanii (Fernald) Mack.	1870	Joseph Blake	Sharon
Chamaecyparis thyoides (L.) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb.	1870	Joseph Blake	Sharon
Chantransia hermannii (Roth) Desvaux	1870	F. W. Dewart

All 9,105 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 17 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 17 workings within 5 miles of Medfield: 8 past producers, 8 producers, 1 unknown. 8 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, Stone, 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
Needham Pit	Stone	Past Producer
Walpole Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Bates Bros Quarry	Granite	Producer
Hopkinton Quarry	Granite	Producer
Dedham Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Dedham Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Holliston Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Medway Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Millis Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Norfolk Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms nearby

8 since 1998

The National Weather Service names Medfield in 8 storm reports between 1998 and 2020: 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
October 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Medfield	$18,000	In Walpole, multiple trees were down, snapped, or uprooted from Mill Brook Avenue to Pine Hill Drive. Four trees were downed onto houses.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Medfield	$8,000	In Medfield, a large tree was down on Lowell Mason Road. A large tree was down on Main Street. A large tree was down on Pound Street. Three large trees were down into the back part of an apartment house on Wilkins Glen Road.
October 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Medfield	$1,500	In Medfield, multiple trees were down around South Street.
July 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Medfield	$500	In Medfield, a tree was down on Pound Street.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Medfield	$500	In Medfield, a tree was down on Granite Street.
May 2002	Hail	Medfield	-	no account filed
June 2002	Hail	Medfield	-	no account filed
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Medfield	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Norfolk 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
Crownridge Estates	0.8 miles	43
Medfield Junction	1.2 miles	43
Harding	1.4 miles	43
Farm Street Station	1.7 miles	43
Clicquot	2.7 miles	43
Millis	3.1 miles	43
West Walpole	3.6 miles	43
Cedar Hill	3.9 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 Medfield	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q6805284	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 611950. 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.