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

Middleton, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Middleton town. It lies in ZIP code area 01949. It stands on Wills Hill. The Survey maps it on the Reading quadrangle.

Middleton within Essex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

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 Middleton, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Middleton, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

40 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

96 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 96 fires within 5 miles of Middleton between 2003 and 2020, burning about 311 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
Debris and open burning	23
Recreation and ceremony	23
Smoking	19
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	15
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Fireworks	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
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
28 September 2019	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	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
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 5,688 shown

Museums hold 5,688 specimens collected within 10 miles of Middleton between 1800 and 1975: 2,680 Animalia, 2,032 Plantae, 732 Fungi, 119 Unrecorded, 59 Chromista, 58 Bacteria, 8 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A B. Proper, A E Preble, A. B. 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
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
Carex caryophyllea Latourr.	1847	C. Dewey	Salem
Carex muhlenbergii Kunth ex Boott	1847	F. M. B. Boott
Ceramium rubrum C.Agardh	1848	E. Hodges

All 5,688 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

7 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Middleton: 4 past producers, 2 producers, 1 plant. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Thorium, Sulfur. 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
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

Storms nearby

17 since 1996

The National Weather Service names Middleton in 17 storm reports between 1996 and 2025: 6 thunderstorm wind, 4 flood, 3 flash flood, 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
June 2005	Lightning	Middleton	$60,000	no account filed
September 2018	Flash Flood	South Middleton	$5,000	At 10:40 AM EST, a garage on Belleview Avenue in Middleton was flooded.
June 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Middleton	$5,000	At 118 PM EST, trees and wires were down on Jenkins Road at the entrance of Camp Evergreen Day Camp in Andover, MA.
August 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Middleton	$3,500	In Middleton, a tree was down on a house on Oak Rd.
September 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	South Middleton	$2,000	In Peabody, there were a tree and wires down on Hamilton Rd and a tree on a vehicle on Lexington Ave.
June 2017	Flood	South Middleton	$1,000	At 447 PM EST, rain caused twelve inches of water on Boston Street in Middleton.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Middleton	$800	In Middletown a tree and wires were down.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Middleton	$500	In Middleton, a tree was down on Peabody Street at Mill Street.
September 2020	Flood	Middleton	-	In Middleton, the intersection of East Street and Towne Road was flooded and impassable.
November 2018	Flood	Middleton	-	In Middleton, there was significant flooding on a portion of Maple Street.
September 2018	Flash Flood	South Middleton	-	At 11:03 AM EST, a car was trapped in floodwaters in Lynnfield at the intersection of Main Street and Lowell Street.
June 2017	Hail	Middleton	-	At 434 PM EST, nickel size hail was covering the ground and making roads slick in Middleton, MA.
December 2014	Flood	South Middleton	-	Roosevelt Avenue at Russell Street was closed due to flooding.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Middleton	-	Trees and wires down on Essex Street.
July 2007	Hail	Middleton	-	Penny size hail.
July 2004	Hail	Middleton	-	no account filed
October 1996	Flash Flood	South Middleton	-	no account filed

Every storm 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
Brigadoon Village	0.7 miles	40
Howe	1.0 miles	42
Middleton Colony	1.3 miles	42
South Middleton	1.8 miles	40
Burleys Corner	1.9 miles	42
Hathorne	2.3 miles	42
Beaver Brook (historical)	3.3 miles	42
Ferncroft	3.3 miles	42

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612784. 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.