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

Middleton Colony, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Middleton town. It lies in ZIP code area 01949. It stands on Ferncroft Hill. The Survey maps it on the Salem quadrangle.

Middleton Colony within Essex County

Then and now

1888 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 97 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Middleton Colony, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of Middleton Colony, surveyed 1888

Topographic sheets covering this place

42 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.

Fires nearby

100 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 100 fires within 5 miles of Middleton Colony between 2003 and 2020, burning about 306 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 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
Recreation and ceremony	23
Debris and open burning	22
Smoking	18
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	17
Equipment and vehicle use	7
Misuse of fire by a minor	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	3
Fireworks	3
Arson/incendiarism	2
Other causes	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
7 September 2007	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
6 September 2007	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Massachussetts State Fire Marshal's Office	not named
4 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BEVERLY
21 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
15 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	LYNNFIELD
13 September 2020	Smoking	1.2 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
12 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	DANVERS

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Essex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 6,839 shown

Museums hold 6,839 specimens collected within 10 miles of Middleton Colony between 1800 and 1975: 2,883 Animalia, 2,520 Plantae, 938 Fungi, 208 Unrecorded, 184 Chromista, 96 Bacteria, 10 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A B. Proper, A E Preble, A. A. Eaton 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
Corylus americana Walter	1900	E. F. Williams
Populus grandidentata Michx.	1900	E. F. Williams
Rhodocollybia prolixa var. distorta (Fr.) Antonín, Halling & Noordel.	1800	R. B. Mackintosh	Peabody
Erysiphaceae	1803	A. B. Seymour
Viola labradorica Schrank	1816	not recorded	Andover Turnpike, 6 miles from Boston U.S.A.
Brasenia schreberi J.F.Gmel.	1821	not recorded	Pleasant Pond, Wenham, Mass.
Diphyscium foliosum (Hedw.) D.Mohr	1822	ALCOTT
Arcyria oerstedii Rostaf., 1875	1826	F. A. Gilbert
Glyceria obtusa (Muhl.) Trin.	1838	W Oakes
Euphorbia polygonifolia L.	1840	Wolle, J.	Ipswich
Iva frutescens L.	1840	Oakes	ad Ipswich
Potentilla anserina L.	1840	Wolle, J.	Ipswich

All 6,839 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

8 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Middleton Colony: 4 past producers, 2 producers, 2 plants. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Thorium, Tungsten. 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
Hale Engineering Co--Danvers, Ma.	Tungsten	Plant
Harriman Mine	Sulfur	Past Producer
Thiokol Ventron Div--Danvers, Ma.	Thorium	Plant
Camillieri Corp Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Donald Innis Inc	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Danvers Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Essex Bituminous Concrete Products	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Peabody Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer

Every working recorded in Essex 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
Howe	0.4 miles	42
Burleys Corner	0.9 miles	42
Hathorne	1.0 miles	42
Brigadoon Village	1.2 miles	40
Middleton	1.3 miles	40
Beaver Brook (historical)	2.0 miles	42
Ferncroft	2.0 miles	42
Danvers Center	2.1 miles	42

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.

Wikidata item Q122560056

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 614284. 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.