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

North Billerica, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Billerica town. It lies in ZIP code area 01862. It stands on Gilson Hill. The Survey maps it on the Billerica quadrangle.

North Billerica within Middlesex 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 North Billerica, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of North Billerica, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 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 Billerica town, in the words of 1908.

1908, Billerica Town

Crosby

14. Josiah, son of Josiali. 5, b. 1704, Aug. 5; m. 1729-30, Feb. 3, Elizabetli French, dau. of William, 7. She d. 1739, Nov. 27. He d. before 1743. Killed by the Indians says tradition. Ch. Josiah. b. 3730, Nov. 24. He was in the military service in 1747, on the C-onnecticut river, and narrowly escaped with his life by swimming the river from the anibusead(» in which French.

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Fires nearby

64 since 2002

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 64 fires within 5 miles of North Billerica between 2002 and 2020, burning about 30 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	30
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	23
Recreation and ceremony	4
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	1
Smoking	1
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
17 August 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
2 July 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 June 2020	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
25 June 2020	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 June 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 May 2015	Other causes	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 nearby

12 of 453 shown

Museums hold 453 specimens collected within 10 miles of North Billerica between 1898 and 1975: 198 Animalia, 182 Plantae, 63 Fungi, 5 Unrecorded, 3 Chromista, 2 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Mathieson, A. E. Sears 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
Trientalis borealis Raf.	1900	A. P. Chute
Boletus griseus Frost	1898	H. Webster
Esox americanus Gmelin, 1789	1898	E. Preble	Maple Meadow Brook near Wilmington, Massachusetts
Exosporium pusillum P.Karst.	1898	King C. A.	Stony Brook
Podura aquatica C.Linnæus, 1758	1898	not recorded
Rosa nitida Willd.	1898	C. H. Knowlton
Salix eriocephala Michx.	1898	E. F. Williams
Antennaria howellii subsp. neodioica (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1899	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria neglecta Greene	1899	not recorded
Aristida dichotoma Michx.	1899	E. F. Williams
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, R.	Stony Brook
Betula alleghaniensis Britton	1900	E. F. Williams

All 453 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 North Billerica: 3 past producers, 3 plants, 2 producers. 5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Graphite. 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
Avaco Corp--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Stackpole Fibers Co--Lowell, Ma.	Graphite	Plant
Amasa W Brown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Amasa W. Brown Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Glenview Sand and Gravel Corp. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Heffron Asphalt Co. Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Jowalco, Incorporated	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Lowell Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Plant

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

1 since 2022

The National Weather Service names North Billerica in 1 storm report between 2022 and 2022: 1 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
March 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	North Billerica	$1,500	In Tewksbury, a large tree branch was down on a house on Knollwood Road.

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
River Pines	1.4 miles	41
Billerica	1.9 miles	41
South Lowell	2.5 miles	41
East Billerica	2.5 miles	41
Rio Vista	3.0 miles	41
Wamesit	3.1 miles	48
Pattenville	3.1 miles	41
Ayres City	3.2 miles	48

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611843. 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.