North Oxford, Massachusetts

44 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1889 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Oxford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01540. It stands on Wellington Brook. The Survey maps it on the Worcester South quadrangle.

North Oxford within Worcester County

Then and now

1889 to 1989

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 Oxford, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of North Oxford, surveyed 1889

On record in North Oxford

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register within a mile 1 record

The National Register names another town for these. They stand within one mile of this settlement's coordinate.

Bartlett's Bridgelisted 2000 · 0.8 miles away

Topographic sheets covering this place

20 surveys from 44 printed 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.

1889 USGS Webster quadrangle1:62500
1892 USGS Webster quadrangle1:62500, 9 printings
1908 USGS Quinsigamond quadrangle1:125000, 3 printings
1921 USGS Webster quadrangle1:62500
1935 USGS Millbury quadrangle1:24000
1939 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:31680, 4 printings
1943 USGS Quinsigamond quadrangle1:125000
1948 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1948 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:24000
1948 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:31680
1956 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 6 printings
1958 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1960 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:24000, 2 printings
1961 USGS Boston quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1973 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:25000
1973 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:24000
1975 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:25000
1983 USGS Worcester South quadrangle1:25000, 2 printings
1985 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000
1989 USGS Boston quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings

In the county-history sources

9,358 words on this township

History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., published 1889 names this settlement in its chapter on Oxford Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

In May the church was recognized by the ecclesiastical council as the North Oxford Baptist Church. The meeting-house of the society was erected in 1837, and among the pastors have been Rev. A. Smith Lyou, Rev. Solomon Gale, Rev. J. N. Hobart, Rev. Joseph Hodges, Rev. J. E. Wood, Rev. C. M. Herring, Rev. Thomas Chapman, Rev. Joseph Smith, Rev. W. H. Shedd, Rev. J. W. Lathrop, Rev. Oliver Ayer. At the present time the pulpit is occupied by temporary supplies.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., published 1889.

Frederick Thayer is engaged at North Oxford in the manufacture of cassimeres. At the same place S. D. Nye manufactures cotton yarn, Edwin Bartlett manufactures cotton warp and twine, N. E. Taft manufactures satinettes and John Chase & Co. manufacture cassimeres. At Oxford Centre Andrew Howarth & Son manufacture flannels and A. L. Joslin & Co. men's and women's and children's shoes. Another mill, called the Buffum Mill, is not at present in operation.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., published 1889.

The progenitor of the branch of the family to which the subject of this sketch belongs removed, according to tradition, from Salem or vicinity to Cumberland, R. I., where Zephaniah, the grandfather of Edwin, was born. He was a farmer and a blacksmith, and removed about 1795 from Cumberland to Thompson, Conn., where was born, February 9, 1810, Asa, the father of Edwin. He spent his early boyhood on the farm, and at twelve years of age began service at Slater & Howard's woolen-mill in Dudley (now Webster) entering the carding-roora. Here he made good progress, and from time to time was promoted, until he was placed in charge of the department as overseer, which position he filled ably until his decease, in 1885, having been in this place for the term of sixt3'-three years. He was a man of character and influence, and although not professedly religious, was a constant attendant on public worship at the Baptist Church. He married Matilda, daughter of Samuel Kingsbury, who belonged to one of the staid old families of southern Oxford, and who served as a soldier in the Revolutionary War. They had three children - Edwin, Amos and Harriet. Amos was captain of Co. H, in the renowned Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment, iu the late war, and is now, 1888, superintendent of the Slater mill, in which his father spent so many years. Harriet married A. J. Bates, a well-known citizen of Webster, and died in June, 1887. Edwin was born October 25, 1833, at Webster, attended the public schools of that town and at Wilbrahaji Academy, and later at a commercial school at Worcester. In his boyhood he worked under his father in the mill. At about sixteen years of age he was apprenticed to learn wool sorting, and was employed after the expiration of his apprenticeship as journeyman at Slater's until he came of age, in 1S54. He then went to Philadelphia, where he obtained a situation iu a wool-store, and continued there for one year. In 1855 he returned to Webster, and spent the year at the old business ot wool-sorting. In 185(5 he accepted a situation as book-keeper at tlie millof Russell Phelps, at West Fitchburg, where he remained for five years, until his engagement, in 1861 at North Oxford, as accountant for Messrs. Ohamberlin & Burrough. After two years here at book-keeping he became superintendent, continuing during 1863 and 1861. In 1865, Ohamberlin having previously sold to Burrough, Mr. Bartlett bought a half-interest in the concern, and the firmname became Burrough & Bartlett, and continued thus until 1870. Down to 1865 their operations had been limited to the wool manufacture, at the two lower or " Huguenot " mills. That year the "Sigourney " and " Rockdale '' mills, both cotton, were added by purchase. In 1870 Oscar F. Chase became a partner, and the firm-name was thereafter 0. F. Chase &Co.

Passage source: History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men., published 1889.

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 Oxford Town - it names this place 2 more 2 times.

Fires near this place

50 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 50 fires within 5 miles of North Oxford between 2015 and 2020, burning about 22 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	14
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	11
Recreation and ceremony	7
Railroad operations and maintenance	6
Smoking	6
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Arson/incendiarism	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
25 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
15 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
15 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 August 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 August 2020	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 July 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 July 2016	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
8 June 2020	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,719 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,719 specimens collected within 10 miles of North Oxford between 1839 and 1974: 966 Plantae, 472 Animalia, 247 Fungi, 17 Unrecorded, 13 Protozoa, 4 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A E WOODHEAD, A. A. Eaton, 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
Ochrolechia tartarea (L.) A.Massal.	1839	E. Tuckerman
Carex laxiflora Lam.	1840	Thomas Nuttall	Cambridge.
Carex vestita Willd.	1840	Thomas Nuttall	Cambridge.
Mycobilimbia hypnorum (Lib.) Kalb & Hafellner	1848	E. Tuckerman
Cladonia cornucopioides F.Wilson	1850	J. L. Russell	Leicester
Geranium maculatum L.	1850	not recorded
Packera aurea (L.) Á.Löve & D.Löve	1850	not recorded
Carex aperta Boott	1853	W. Boott	Massachusetts
Elymus repens (L.) Gould	1892	Arthur B. Seymour	Cambridge.
Festuca pratensis Huds.	1892	Arthur B. Seymour	Cambridge.
Hepatica americana (DC.) Ker Gawl.	1892	Clarence Kinney
Leucobryum vulgare Hampe	1892	unknown

All 1,719 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 20 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 20 workings within 5 miles of North Oxford: 16 past producers, 3 producers, 1 plant. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron. 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
Crucible Spec. Metals--Auburn, Ma.	Iron	Plant
Auburn Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Charlton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Crossover Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Donald P Graves Sand and Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Highway Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Highway Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Lind Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Old Webster Road Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Oxford Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester 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
Camp Barton	1.5 miles	42
Texas	1.6 miles	42
Oxford Heights	1.7 miles	42
West Auburn	1.8 miles	44
Hodges Village	2.3 miles	42
Oxford	2.3 miles	43
Buffumville	2.7 miles	42
Cominsville	2.9 miles	42

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 Q122543388

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 610661. 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.