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

Metcalf, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Holliston town. It lies in ZIP code area 01746. It stands on Miller Hill. The Survey maps it on the Holliston quadrangle. It stands 801 feet above sea level.

Metcalf within Middlesex County

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 Metcalf, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Metcalf, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 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.

In the county-history sources

22,152 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1890 names this settlement in its chapter on Holliston Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The manufacture of coach lace was commenced by Prescott Littlefield, about 1827, and was continued for some eight years. He employed eight or ten hands, mostly girls, and the weaving was done by hand-power. After the death of Mr." Littlefield the business was discontinued, and the place passed into other hands. A portion of the building was used for a shoe-shop, and was soon burned. It was the first shop burned in Holliston ; and being one of the earliest fires of the town, it allowed the new fire company to display their engine in action. This may be remembered by some as the old crank machine, " Waterwitch," kept at Metcalf's station for many years. The origin of this, as of so many later fires in the town, was shrouded in uncertainty. For the purpose of saving property the windows and doors were removed at an early stage of the fire.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1890.

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 Holliston Town.

Fires near this place

110 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 110 fires within 5 miles of Metcalf between 2015 and 2020, burning about 191 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 38 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
Arson/incendiarism	38
Debris and open burning	35
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	23
Recreation and ceremony	5
Power generation/transmission/distribution	5
Natural	2
Fireworks	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
6 September 2019	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 September 2018	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 September 2019	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
1 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	ASHLAND
9 August 2020	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
5 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MEDFIELD
3 August 2020	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 August 2018	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 770 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 770 specimens collected within 10 miles of Metcalf between 1898 and 1975: 657 Animalia, 95 Plantae, 18 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Strong, Altpeter, Arthur French 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
Actaea pachypoda Elliott	1898	Ernest Charles Smith
Aquilegia canadensis L.	1898	M. I. Gunn	Natick
Arthonia lecideella Nyl.	1898	Clara E. Cummings
Bartramia pomiformis var. elongata Turner	1898	C. E. Cummings
Bromus ciliatus L.	1898	Ernest Charles Smith	Framingham.
Bromus secalinus L.	1898	Arthur French	Framingham.
Carex brevior (Dewey) Mack. ex Lunell	1898	Ernest Charles Smith	Framingham.
Carex laxiflora Lam.	1898	Ernest Charles Smith	Framingham.
Agonopterix atrodorsella Clemens, 1863	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Apantesis Walker, 1855	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Apatelodes torrefacta J.E.Smith, 1797	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Archips cerasivorana (Fitch, 1856)	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn

All 770 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 26 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 26 workings within 5 miles of Metcalf: 21 past producers, 4 producers, 1 plant. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite, 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
Ashland Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Holliston Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Barretto Granite Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Castellucci and Sons	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
H E Fletcher	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Milford Pink Granite Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Milford Quarry	Granite	Producer
Simeone Stone Corp	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Trimount Bituminous Prod	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Ashland Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this place

2 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Metcalf in 2 storm reports between 2018 and 2023: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
September 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Metcalf	$1,000	At 3:34 PM EST, wind brought a tree down on Highland Street in the Rolling Meadow area.
July 2023	Flash Flood	Metcalf	-	In Holliston, there was signficant basement flooding on Wedgewood Dr.

Every storm recorded in Middlesex 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
Holliston	1.6 miles	41
Braggville Station	2.1 miles	41
Braggville	2.2 miles	41
East Holliston	2.4 miles	41
Gooch Corners	3.2 miles	41
Camp Bob White	3.2 miles	41
Hayden Row	3.7 miles	42
Whitneys	4.4 miles	41

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 Metcalf	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q22073854	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 611709. 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.