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

Middlefield, Massachusetts

37 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Middlefield town. It lies in ZIP code area 01243. It stands on Johnnycake Hill. The Survey maps it on the Becket quadrangle.

Middlefield within Hampshire County

Then and now

1886 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 111 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Middlefield, surveyed 1997

Topographic sheet of Middlefield, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

37 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.

Bancroft Bridge, Middlefield, Hampshire County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Fires nearby

2 since 2016

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Middlefield between 2016 and 2016, burning about 22 acres in total. None 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.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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
31 March 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	18 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
12 March 2016	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Hampshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 374 shown

Museums hold 374 specimens collected within 10 miles of Middlefield between 1822 and 1975: 262 Animalia, 60 Plantae, 52 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Gurney, A. K. Harrison, Ahles, H.E. 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
Porella platyphylloidea (Schwein.) Lindb.	1822	Emmons	Norwich
Halenia deflexa (Sm.) Griseb.	1868	Collector(s): Henry Griswold Jesup	Cummington
Lygodium palmatum (Bernh.) Sw.	1872	Miller, E.S.	East Hampton
Leucobryum glaucum (Hedw.) Ångstr.	1877	H. J. Biddlecome	Chester
Dendroica discolor discolor (Vieillot, 1809)	1890	C. H. Watrous	Chester
Dendroica virens virens (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)	1891	Henry Bennett	Chester
Lithobates clamitans (Latreille, 1801)	1892	not recorded	Worthington
Lithobates palustris (LeConte, 1825)	1892	not recorded	Worthington
Phegopteris connectilis (Michx.) Watt	1892	B. Shimek	Cummington.
Falco columbarius columbarius Linnaeus, 1758	1900	Forge, C P	W Hampshire County
Pachynematus kirbyi (Dahlbom, 1835)	1903	not recorded
Phanogomphus descriptus (Banks, 1896)	1903	not recorded	Cummington

All 374 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 12 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 12 workings within 5 miles of Middlefield: 8 occurrences, 3 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Emery, Talc-Soapstone, Iron, Iron, Emery. 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
Chrome-Magnetite Mine	Iron, Chromium	Past Producer
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron, Emery	Occurrence	1875
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron	Past Producer	Magnetite
Sackett Emery Mine	Iron, Emery	Past Producer
Middlefield Prospects	Talc-Soapstone	Occurrence
Soapstone Quarry	Talc-Soapstone	Producer	Metamorphic
Talc Occurance	Talc-Soapstone	Occurrence	Metamorphic
Talc Occurrence	Talc-Soapstone	Occurrence
Chrome-Magnetite Mine	Emery	Occurrence	Emery
Northern Chester Emery Mine	Emery	Occurrence	Emery

Every working recorded in Hampshire County

Storms nearby

10 since 2008

The National Weather Service names Middlefield in 10 storm reports between 2008 and 2018: 7 thunderstorm wind, 3 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
May 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Middlefield	$25,000	Trees were downed by thunderstorm winds in Middlefield and Worthington, particularly along Route 12 in Worthington.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Middlefield	$15,000	Trees and power lines on Skyline Trail were downed by thunderstorm winds.
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Middlefield	$10,000	Trees on Town Hill Road were downed by thunderstorm winds.
September 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Middlefield	$8,000	Trees and power lines were downed by thunderstorm winds.
August 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Middlefield	$2,000	At 10:15 PM EST, a tree and wires were brought down on the lower part of Town Hill Road in Middlefield.
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Middlefield	$1,000	A six to eight inch diameter tree on Skyline Trail was downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Middlefield	$500	A 7 inch diameter tree limb was downed by thunderstorm winds, partially blocking Clark Wright Road. Several other smaller tree limbs also were downed.
May 2010	Hail	Middlefield	-	Penny size hail fell on Chester Road.
July 2009	Hail	Middlefield	-	Nickel size hail fell on Bankroft Road.
June 2010	Hail	Middlefield	-	no account filed

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
Blush Hollow	1.0 miles	37
Bancroft	2.8 miles	37
West Worthington	5.4 miles	35
Worthington Center	5.4 miles	35
Ringville	5.8 miles	36
Worthington Corners	6.0 miles	35
South Worthington	6.6 miles	36
West Chesterfield	8.3 miles	35

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 608066. 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.