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

Point Independence, Massachusetts

39 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1994. It stands in Wareham town. It lies in ZIP code area 02532. It stands on Wickets Island. The Survey maps it on the Onset quadrangle.

Point Independence within Plymouth County

Then and now

1886 to 1994

The same ground, surveyed 108 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Point Independence, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet of Point Independence, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

39 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

204 since 2001

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 204 fires within 5 miles of Point Independence between 2001 and 2020, burning about 112 acres in total. 7 started naturally. 18 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/undetermined75
Debris and open burning50
Smoking26
Arson/incendiarism18
Misuse of fire by a minor13
Equipment and vehicle use8
Natural7
Recreation and ceremony7

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
9 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWAREHAM
7 September 2020Misuse of fire by a minorunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
7 September 2002Smokingunder an acreMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
6 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWAREHAM
5 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWAREHAM
4 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWAREHAM
4 September 2004Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachussetts State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
3 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Plymouth County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 2,836 shown

Museums hold 2,836 specimens collected within 10 miles of Point Independence between 1816 and 1975: 1,446 Animalia, 879 Plantae, 371 Fungi, 119 Chromista, 16 Bacteria, 5 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. C. Mathieson, A. H. Moore 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 Tolyposporium eriocauli G.P.ClintonTolyposporium eriocauli G.P.Clinton1900G.P. Clinton
Specimen of Ustilago nuda (C.N.Jensen) Kellerm. & SwingleUstilago nuda (C.N.Jensen) Kellerm. & Swingle1900G. P. Clinton
A photograph of the species Cistus L., not of this specimenCistus L.1816Boott, F.M.Sandwich, Massts. [=Sandwich, Massachusetts].
Lythraceae1816Boott, J.W.Sandwich, Mass'ts. | [On reverse of sheet:] From Sandwich, Mass'ts U.S.A. [=From Sandwich, Massachusetts, U.S.A.]
A photograph of the species Malva neglecta, not of this specimenMalva neglecta Wallr.1816Boott, J.W.Sandwich. Mass.tts.
A photograph of the species Baptisia tinctoria, not of this specimenBaptisia tinctoria (L.) R.Br.1837J. Blake
A photograph of the species Amaranthus hybridus, not of this specimenAmaranthus hybridus L.1855not recorded
A photograph of the species Clethra alnifolia, not of this specimenClethra alnifolia L.1855not recorded
A photograph of the species Euthamia lanceolata, not of this specimenEuthamia lanceolata (L.) G.L.Nesom1855not recorded
A photograph of the species Persicaria pensylvanica, not of this specimenPersicaria pensylvanica (L.) Small1855not recorded
A photograph of the species Alosa aestivalis, not of this specimenAlosa aestivalis (Mitchill, 1814)1899not recordedWest Falmouth, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Aluterus schoepfii, not of this specimenAluterus schoepfii (Walbaum, 1792)1899not recordedWest Falmouth, Massachusetts

All 2,836 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

1 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Point Independence: 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: 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 SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Charge Pond Road Pit & PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Plymouth County

Storms nearby

2 since 2019

The National Weather Service names Point Independence in 2 storm reports between 2019 and 2022: 2 lightning. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 2022LightningPoint Independence$8,000In Wareham, lightning started a boat fire on Onset Pier.
July 2019LightningPoint Independence$500In Wareham, a house was struck by lightning on Blueberry Road.

Every storm recorded in Plymouth 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
Onset0.4 miles39
Riverside0.6 miles39
Jefferson Shores1.3 miles39
Indian Heights1.6 miles39
East Wareham1.7 miles39
Onset Station1.8 miles39
Parkwood Beach2.7 miles39
Pinehurst Beach3.2 miles39

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 Q122571828The 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 615556. 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.