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

Nobscot, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Framingham City. It lies in ZIP code area 01701. It stands on Juniper Hill. The Survey maps it on the Framingham quadrangle.

Nobscot within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Nobscot, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Nobscot, 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.

In the county-history sources

30,115 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 Framingham City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The site selected was " the most accommodable spot" on the ministerial land for the scattered population. It brought " the seventeen families " nearer to a place of worship than Sherborn meoting-house. The east side settlers gravitated to the Great Bridge by easy paths from Rice's End and Sherborn Row. The people from Nobscot and Stone's End had paths to Pike's Row, and thence by the Edgell place on nearly a straight line to the meeting-house. A road from the Hemenways through Temple Street, met the road from Salem End on the present R. W. Whiting place, which then ran east past the house of C. J. Frost, about twenty rods east of which it received the path from the Mellen and Haven neighborhoods, and then led direct to the meeting-house.

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

There are now owned by the town two steam fireengines, one located at the Centre and one at Saxonville. A hook-and-ladder company has been organized at the South village. There is also a well-appointed hose company. A .system of fire-alarms has been established in each of the villages. The handengine was transferred to Nobscot, where a full and efficient company has been formed.

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

A Free Public Reading-Roora is maintained by the town, being located now in Nobscot Block. This is well supplied with magazines and papers, and from it books are distributed from the main Public Library at the Centre Village, which is one of the oldest free public libraries in the world, and which contains about 15,000 volumes.

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 Framingham City - it names this place 5 more 5 times.

Fires near this place

136 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 136 fires within 5 miles of Nobscot between 1995 and 2020, burning about 151 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 11 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	58
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	40
Arson/incendiarism	11
Recreation and ceremony	8
Power generation/transmission/distribution	5
Smoking	4
Railroad operations and maintenance	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Natural	2
Fireworks	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
8 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2018	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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 1,206 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,206 specimens collected within 10 miles of Nobscot between 1898 and 1975: 832 Animalia, 261 Plantae, 106 Fungi, 4 Chromista, 2 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley, A. F. Newton 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
Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822	1900	not recorded	Wayland
Actaea pachypoda Elliott	1898	Ernest Charles Smith
Antennaria howellii subsp. canadensis (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1898	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria parlinii subsp. fallax (Greene) R.J.Bayer & Stebbins	1898	not recorded
Antennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Hook.	1898	not recorded
Aquilegia canadensis L.	1898	M. I. Gunn	Natick
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
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, Roland	Stony Brook, Mass. [Massachusetts]
Archips cerasivorana (Fitch, 1856)	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn
Bleptina caradrinalis Guenée, 1854	1900	E. J. Smith	Sherborn

All 1,206 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 Nobscot: 6 past producers, 1 plant, 1 unknown. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Peat. 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
Hawkridge Bros--Ashland, Ma.	Iron	Plant
Panlini Loam Co	Peat	Past Producer	Peat
Arthur Scofield Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Framington Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
New England Sand & Grv Co. Pit & Pl	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Sand & Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Stonebridge Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Town of Wayland	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this place

2 since 2022

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Nobscot in 2 storm reports between 2022 and 2023: 2 thunderstorm wind. 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
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Nobscot	$17,000	Shortly after midnight (EDT), a microburst occurred in a section of Framingham. There was a narrow swath of about a dozen downed trees, mainly in backyards, from Kara Ann Drive eastward across Harrington Road and onto Cynthia Road. A few of the trees were uprooted. One tree fell onto a car in a driveway. A window was blown out of one garage. This was most likely a microburst, but there is a non-zero chance that this could have been a tornado. Radar imagery and damage photos were inconclusive.
August 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Nobscot	$1,000	In Framingham, a tree was down on James Street and another tree was down on Winch Street.

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
Saxonville	2.0 miles	40
Framingham Center	2.2 miles	40
South Sudbury	2.6 miles	40
East Sudbury Station	2.8 miles	40
Lokerville	3.5 miles	40
Framingham	3.6 miles	40
Musketamquid Village	3.8 miles	43
Cochituate	3.9 miles	46

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611564. 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.