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

Packardville, Massachusetts

32 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Pelham town. It lies in ZIP code area 01007. It stands on Dodge Hill. The Survey maps it on the Belchertown quadrangle.

Packardville within Hampshire County

Then and now

1887 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 98 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Packardville, surveyed 1985
Topographic sheet of Packardville, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

32 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 Pelham town, in the words of 1898.

1898, Pelham Town

The Hadley Lake Drainage

The last of the considerable deposits (m t) at hig-h level on the eastern side of the valley dependent upon the obstructed drainage which attended the retreat of the ice occupies the long, narrow valley along the west border of the Belchertown quadrangle, which runs north by the village of Leverett, along Pond Brook, and past the entrance to "Rattlesnake Gutter," and extends south across the town line into Shutesbury, skirting Mount Boreas on the east and ending just south of this mountain, where, south of 42° 25', the north branch of Fort River, which occupies the lake's former outlet, passes into a canyon to reach the open valley above East Street village, in Amherst.

Read the rest of this passage

In the 1898 county history

12,634 words on this township

The county history of 1898 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for the smaller places. Its township is covered in full.

The chapter on Pelham Town covers the township.

Read the chapter on Pelham Town - 12,634 words.

Fires nearby

17 since 2004

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 17 fires within 5 miles of Packardville between 2004 and 2020, burning about 15 acres in total. 1 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined6
Equipment and vehicle use4
Recreation and ceremony3
Debris and open burning3
Natural1

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
20 August 2020Naturalunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlLITTLE QUABBIN ISLAND FIRE
23 July 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
27 June 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
7 May 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 May 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined5.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 May 2015Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 May 2015Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 May 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined2.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Hampshire County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 7,039 shown

Museums hold 7,039 specimens collected within 10 miles of Packardville between 1781 and 1975: 3,347 Animalia, 1,916 Plantae, 1,578 Fungi, 125 Chromista, 63 Protozoa, 9 Unrecorded, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. Allen, A. B. Seymour, A. Buckman 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 Cercospora violae Sacc.Cercospora violae Sacc.1895Ralph E. SmithHothouse, Mass. Agr. College, Amherst
Specimen of Actias luna Linnaeus, 1758Actias luna Linnaeus, 17581896not recorded
Specimen of Plathemis lydia (Drury, 1773)Plathemis lydia (Drury, 1773)1896not recorded
A photograph of the species Carex argyrantha, not of this specimenCarex argyrantha Tuck. ex Dewey1781H. G. JesupAmherst in Hampshire Co., and Leverett in Franklin Co., Massachusetts. [Inferred counties from precise loc.]
A photograph of the species Carex foenea, not of this specimenCarex foenea Willd.1781H. G. JesupAnd Leverett
A photograph of the species Ustilago nuda, not of this specimenUstilago nuda (C.N.Jensen) Kellerm. & Swingle1810J.E. Humphrey
A photograph of the species Ranunculus ambigens, not of this specimenRanunculus ambigens S.Watson1831S. Shurtleff
A photograph of the species Dactylis glomerata, not of this specimenDactylis glomerata L.1839S J Ewer
A photograph of the species Solidago arguta, not of this specimenSolidago arguta Aiton1841Collector(s): Henry Holmes Babcock, Henry Griswold JesupAmherst
A photograph of the species Phlebiella vaga, not of this specimenPhlebiella vaga (Fr.) P.Karst.1845Illegible collector name
A photograph of the species Elodea nuttallii, not of this specimenElodea nuttallii (Planch.) H.St.John1847H. G. Jesup
A photograph of the species Biatora sanguineoatra, not of this specimenBiatora sanguineoatra (Wulfen) Tuck.1848Tuckerman Edward

All 7,039 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

4 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Packardville: 2 past producers, 1 producer, 1 occurrence. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Asbestos, Emery, Iron. 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
Andrews MineIronOccurrence1871
Pelham QuarryAsbestos, EmeryPast Producer
Belchertown PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Blakeslee-Arpaia-Chapman S&G CoSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Hampshire 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
Knights Corner1.1 miles32
Meads Corner2.1 miles32
Enfield (historical)3.4 miles32
Pelham3.4 miles35
Dwight3.7 miles32
Highland Glen Estates4.5 miles32
South Quabbin Villa4.6 miles32
Belchertown4.8 miles32

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 Q122597709The 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 609199. 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.