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

North Dighton, Massachusetts

34 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1885 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Dighton town. It lies in ZIP code area 02764. It stands on Threemile River. The Survey maps it on the Somerset quadrangle.

North Dighton within Bristol County

Then and now

1885 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 100 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 Dighton, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of North Dighton, surveyed 1885

Topographic sheets covering this place

34 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

35,840 words on this township

History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883 names this settlement in its chapter on Dighton Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

The most striking feature of the architecture of one of these old houses is the huge chimney, around which the house was apparently built. The kitchen fireplace was usually an enormous chasm, in which cord-wood was burnt without sawing, and in which one could sit and look up the sooty cavern to the sky. On cold winter evenings the huge high-backed settle was drawn up in front of the fire to keep off draughts. The mug of cider was brought up from the cellar, and perhaps a dish of apples or nuts passed around, or oysters were roasted on the coals. While the fire blazed up brightly there was little need of the tallow candles which flared and sputtered and sent miniature eruptions of melted grease down the candlesticks. Punctually at nine o'clock the family retired to their four-post bedsteads and feather-beds, to be up in the morning at break of day or earlier.

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

The pay for doing the town's business was very moderate, as were the prices for other kinds of work. The town clerk and the selectmen charged at the rate of three shillings a day, and land surveyors had the same pay. Town-meetings were held in the meetinghouse. This saved the expense of a town hall, and was appropriate enough, as much of the town busipess related to church matters. It was the town that built the meeting-house, hired the minister, and collected his rates.

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

The records of town-meetings for many years after the town was incorporated contain but little that would interest the general reader. They are mostly brief entries, poorly written and worse spelled, of the election of town officers and representatives to the General Court, varied by transcripts of bills paid by the treasurer. Some of the town offices that were annually filled then have long since been abolished. Such were the cullers of flax, clerk of the market, tithing men, and hog-reeves. What were the duties of clerk of the market in a farming community, such as Dighton was then, I have not been able to find out. The tithingman was required by law to be selected from the " most prudent and discreet inhabitants," and he was a sort of inspector-general of the township. He was required "to inspect all licensed or unlicensed houses where they shall have notice or have grounds to suspect that any person or persons doe spend their tyme or estates by night or day in tippling, gaming, or otherwise unprofitably, or doe sell or retayle strong drink, wine, cider, rumm, brandey, jerry, or methylin without a license." They were also required " to inspect the manners of all disorderly persons, and to present to the magistrate the names of all single persons who live from under family government, stubborn and disorderly children and servants, night-walkers, tipplers, and Sabbath-breakers, by night or day, and such as absent themselves from the worship of God on the Lord's dayes." The tithingman was required to be provided, at the expense of the town, with "a black staff, two feet long, tipt at one end with brass about

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

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 Dighton Town - it names this place 9 more 9 times.

Fires near this place

49 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 49 fires within 5 miles of North Dighton between 2015 and 2020, burning about 42 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	24
Debris and open burning	15
Recreation and ceremony	4
Arson/incendiarism	2
Smoking	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
16 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 August 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.5 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 August 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
11 August 2020	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
10 August 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
10 August 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
10 August 2015	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 Bristol County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,009 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,009 specimens collected within 10 miles of North Dighton between 1855 and 1975: 692 Animalia, 220 Plantae, 88 Fungi, 7 Chromista, 2 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A E Schuyler, 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
Apocynum cannabinum L.	1855	F. C. Seymour	Rehoboth
Astur Lacepède, 1799	1860	C. D. Lincoln	Taunton
Carex panicea L.	1863	J. H. Dean
Carex L.	1864	J. H. Dean	Taunton.
Carex vulpinoidea Michx.	1864	J. H. Dean
Hypoxis hirsuta (L.) Coville	1874	not recorded
Chelidonium majus L.	1875	not recorded
Lygodium palmatum (Bernh.) Sw.	1875	not recorded
Berberis vulgaris L.	1876	not recorded
Empidonax minimus (W.M.Baird & S.F.Baird, 1843)	1877	C.P. Snow	Taunton, North
Chaetura pelagica (Linnaeus, 1758)	1878	C. F. Snow	MASSACHUSETTS: Bristol County; Taunton
Coccyzus erythropthalmus (A.Wilson, 1811)	1878	not recorded	Taunton

All 1,009 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of North Dighton: 3 producers, 1 past producer, 1 unknown. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. 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
Taunton Plant	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
King Trucking Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Mc Cabe Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Mccabe Sand & Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Mccabe Sand and Gravel Company Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Bristol County

Storms near this place

1 since 2017

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names North Dighton in 1 storm report between 2017 and 2017: 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
July 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	North Dighton	$1,500	At 304 PM EST, a tree was brought down on wires on Prospect Street in Dighton.

Every storm recorded in Bristol 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
Westville	1.6 miles	33
Segreganset	2.0 miles	34
Berkley Bridge	2.3 miles	34
Weir Village	2.5 miles	33
Wades Corner	2.5 miles	33
Berkley	2.5 miles	34
Chestnut Tree Corner	2.7 miles	33
Taunton	3.1 miles	33

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 Q122539259

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 617350. 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.