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

Phillipston, Massachusetts

32 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Phillipston town. It lies in ZIP code area 01331. It stands on Searle Hill. The Survey maps it on the Athol quadrangle.

Phillipston within Worcester County

Then and now

1887 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 101 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Phillipston, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Phillipston, 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.

Fires nearby

15 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 15 fires within 5 miles of Phillipston between 2015 and 2020, burning about 7 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	10
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
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
24 July 2015	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
9 June 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
30 June 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
17 June 2020	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
16 June 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
15 June 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 May 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 May 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 Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,779 shown

Museums hold 1,779 specimens collected within 10 miles of Phillipston between 1839 and 1975: 860 Animalia, 471 Fungi, 424 Plantae, 15 Unrecorded, 9 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. C. V. Schott, A. J. Stone 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
Osmunda regalis L.	1900	Bates, J.A.	Royalston.
Bartramia pomiformis Hedw.	1839	unknown	Barre
Carex gracillima Schwein.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Carex intumescens Rudge	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Carex lacustris Willd.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Carex stipata Muhl. ex Willd.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Cypripedium acaule Aiton	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Peltandra virginica (L.) Schott	1892	A.
Rosa rubiginosa L.	1892	not recorded
Carex scoparia Schkuhr ex Willd.	1896	W. Deane
Leucanthemum vulgare Lam.	1896	not recorded

All 1,779 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

2 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Phillipston: 1 occurrence, 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Iron, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Dines Roger Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
	Jagger Mine	Iron	Occurrence	1845

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

7 since 1998

The National Weather Service names Phillipston in 7 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail. 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
June 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Phillipston	$5,000	A tree and wires on Willis Road were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Phillipston	$5,000	Wires on Main Road were downed by thunderstorm winds.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Phillipston	$500	In Phillipston, two trees were down on wires on State Rd.
June 2019	Hail	Phillipston	-	At 1:27 PM EST, three-quarter inch diameter hail was reported at Phillipston MA.
June 2007	Hail	Phillipston	-	Penny size hail.
August 2002	Hail	Phillipston	-	no account filed
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Phillipston	-	no account filed

Every storm 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
Goulding Village	1.3 miles	33
Phillipston Four Corners	1.4 miles	32
Brooks Village	1.7 miles	33
Templeton Station	2.8 miles	33
Templeton	3.5 miles	33
Partidgeville	4.6 miles	33
Bassets Corner	4.6 miles	31
The Street	4.9 miles	32

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 609691. 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.