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

Ponkapoag, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Canton town. It lies in ZIP code area 02021. It stands on Cherry Hill. The Survey maps it on the Blue Hills quadrangle.

Ponkapoag within Norfolk County

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Ponkapoag, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Ponkapoag, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

42 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

192 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 192 fires within 5 miles of Ponkapoag between 2015 and 2020, burning about 96 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
Recreation and ceremony85
Missing data/not specified/undetermined49
Smoking48
Debris and open burning5
Equipment and vehicle use4
Railroad operations and maintenance1

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
5 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWESTWOOD
3 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlDEDHAM
29 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBRAINTREE
25 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlSTOUGHTON
2 September 2017Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlDEDHAM
17 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlDEDHAM
12 September 2017Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlSTOUGHTON
1 September 2018Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlDEDHAM

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 9,492 shown

Museums hold 9,492 specimens collected within 10 miles of Ponkapoag between 1832 and 1975: 4,225 Plantae, 2,639 Animalia, 2,302 Fungi, 222 Protozoa, 49 Chromista, 34 Unrecorded, 21 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, A C Gibson 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 Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) FernaldLysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald1900A. P. Chute
A photograph of the species Cornus sericea, not of this specimenCornus sericea subsp. sericea1832Nathaniel T. KidderMilton, Brook Road
A photograph of the species Carex echinata, not of this specimenCarex echinata subsp. echinata1834not recorded
A photograph of the species Mentha spicata, not of this specimenMentha spicata L.1834H. GillmanBrookline.
A photograph of the species Silene vulgaris, not of this specimenSilene vulgaris (Moench) Garcke1844not recorded
A photograph of the species Galium verum, not of this specimenGalium verum L.1846Kupell
A photograph of the species Hamamelis virginiana, not of this specimenHamamelis virginiana L.1847Charles F. GirardRoxbury
A photograph of the species Calycanthus L., not of this specimenCalycanthus L.1850not recordedHort. Cantab. [presumably cultivated Hortus Cantabridgiensis, Botanical Garden Harvard University] e Georgia.
Lepidium ruderale L.1850not recorded
A photograph of the species Malvastrum A.Gray, not of this specimenMalvastrum A.Gray1850not recordedHort. Cantab. [=Hortus Cantabridgiensis, Botanical Garden Harvard University].
A photograph of the species Assiminea succinea, not of this specimenAssiminea succinea (L.Pfeiffer, 1840)1852not recordedRoxbury, Boston
A photograph of the species Boerhavia Vaill., not of this specimenBoerhavia Vaill. ex L.1852not recordedHort. Cantab. [Presumably cultivated Hortus Cantabridgiensis, Botanical Garden Harvard University].

All 9,492 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

8 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Ponkapoag: 5 past producers, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 2 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Simeone Stone CorpStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Stoughton QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
A A Will Materials CordSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Boston Sand and Gravel CoSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Canton PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionUnknown
Canton Pit & PlantSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Stoughton PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Town of Soughton PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Norfolk 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
Summer Heights1.8 miles41
Canton2.7 miles41
Springdale2.7 miles41
Readville Manor2.9 miles41
North Randolph3.0 miles42
Greenlodge3.1 miles41
Canton Junction3.1 miles41
Camp Sayre3.1 miles42

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 Q122539314The 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 612981. 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.