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

Newton Highlands, Massachusetts

46 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Newton City. It lies in ZIP code area 02459. It stands on Winchester Hill. The Survey maps it on the Newton quadrangle.

Newton Highlands within Middlesex County

Then and now

1893 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 96 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Newton Highlands, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Newton Highlands, surveyed 1893

Topographic sheets covering this place

46 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Newton city, The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

From History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 - Newton City

Newton

JbIj^ 1700, M. 63. Capt. Noab, of Newton, an Officer in the Expedition against Canada. Killed in battle with the Freoch and Indians July C, 1C90. M. 50, leaving t son Thomas. Ebeneser, oC Newton, died June 21, 1691. .fi. 45. ... . . J. B. Jepson, Newton Comer, rereals many gravestones whose inscriptions are no longer l^ble, and others, recalling the names which filled a laige place in the early history of the town, and Belonged to the founders of its institutions and the authors of its prosperity.

Read the rest of this passage

In the county-history sources

124,955 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Newton City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Professor Charles Siedhof, from a German gymnasium, kept a family school for boys from about 1818 to 1853, in the southernmost of the two houses erected for professors on the Institution land at Newton Centre. Both these houses have since been removed, and now stand, altered and enlarged, on Cypress Street. The school of Professor Siedhof was afterwards removed to the old Clark house on Centre Street, south of Wiswall's Pond, now occupied by Mr. Jepson.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Moses Burbank taught a classical and liigh school for boys from 1848 to 1852 in the basement of the First Baptist ileeting-house at Newton Centre. This was both a boarding and day school. Several other and more recent private schools have existed in different parts of the town, which have held a high rank and done honorable service ; but it is unnecessary, as they belong to the latest times, to speak of them particularly.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

From the original purchase in 1753 by David Bemis, tiie property on the Watertown side of the river has been in the Bemis family more or less exclusively for more than a century and a quarter, and on the Newton side for nearly a century.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

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 Newton City - it names this place 10 more 10 times.

Fires near this place

106 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 106 fires within 5 miles of Newton Highlands between 2003 and 2020, burning about 382 acres in total. None 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
Recreation and ceremony57
Missing data/not specified/undetermined34
Smoking7
Debris and open burning4
Other causes1
Equipment and vehicle use1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1
Arson/incendiarism1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
8 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlNEEDHAM
3 September 2018Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlNEEDHAM
23 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWELLESLEY
21 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlNEEDHAM

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 2,533 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 2,533 specimens collected within 10 miles of Newton Highlands between 1898 and 1975: 1,271 Animalia, 655 Plantae, 547 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 14 Chromista, 13 Bacteria, 4 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A B Seymour, 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 18221900not recordedWayland
Specimen of Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) FernaldLysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald1900A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.1898Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Antennaria howellii, not of this specimenAntennaria howellii subsp. canadensis (Greene) R.J.Bayer1898Williams, E.F.
A photograph of the species Antennaria parlinii, not of this specimenAntennaria parlinii subsp. fallax (Greene) R.J.Bayer & Stebbins1898not recorded
A photograph of the species Antennaria plantaginifolia, not of this specimenAntennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Hook.1898not recorded
A photograph of the species Aquilegia canadensis, not of this specimenAquilegia canadensis L.1898M. I. GunnNatick
A photograph of the species Acanthis flammea, not of this specimenAcanthis flammea flammea (Linnaeus, 1758)1900ZAPPEY, W RROSLINDALE
A photograph of the species Acer carpinifolium, not of this specimenAcer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.1900A. K. HarrisonHarvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
A photograph of the species Acer palmatum, not of this specimenAcer palmatum var. dissectum (Thunb.) Miq.1900A. K. HarrisonHarvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
A photograph of the species Agaricus brunnescens, not of this specimenAgaricus brunnescens Peck1900Morris, G. E.Waltham
A photograph of the species Alnus incana, not of this specimenAlnus incana subsp. rugosa (Du Roi) R.T.Clausen1900J. Murdoch, Jr.Roxbury

All 2,533 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Newton Highlands: 6 past producers, 1 unknown, 1 plant. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Tantalum. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Nrc Inc--Newton, Ma.Tantalum, Niobium (Columbium)Plant
Walpole QuarryStonePast Producer
West Roxbury Crushed Stone OperatioStone, Crushed/BrokenUnknown
Burton PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Greendale PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Town of NeedhamSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Town of WellesleySand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Town of WellesleySand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working 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.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Newton Center0.7 miles46
Eliot0.7 miles46
Thompsonville0.9 miles46
Newton Upper Falls1.2 miles46
Newton1.2 miles46
Waban1.5 miles46
Chestnut Hill1.9 miles46
Oak Hill Park2.0 miles46

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 Newton HighlandsAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q7020256The 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 612349. 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.