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

Riverside, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Billerica town. It lies in ZIP code area 01862. It stands on Pages Brook. The Survey maps it on the Billerica quadrangle.

Riverside within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 102 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Riverside, surveyed 1988
Topographic sheet of Riverside, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

41 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 Billerica town, in the words of 1908.

1908, Billerica Town

Crosby

14. Josiah, son of Josiali. 5, b. 1704, Aug. 5; m. 1729-30, Feb. 3, Elizabetli French, dau. of William, 7. She d. 1739, Nov. 27. He d. before 1743. Killed by the Indians says tradition. Ch. Josiah. b. 3730, Nov. 24. He was in the military service in 1747, on the C-onnecticut river, and narrowly escaped with his life by swimming the river from the anibusead(» in which French.

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Fires nearby

42 since 2008

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 42 fires within 5 miles of Riverside between 2008 and 2020, burning about 27 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 burning25
Missing data/not specified/undetermined14
Recreation and ceremony3

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
17 August 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
2 July 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 June 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
25 June 2020Debris and open burning1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
17 June 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
8 May 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
8 May 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 May 2015Missing data/not specified/undetermined3.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 613 shown

Museums hold 613 specimens collected within 10 miles of Riverside between 1898 and 1975: 263 Plantae, 260 Animalia, 77 Fungi, 6 Unrecorded, 4 Protozoa, 3 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley, A. E. Feldman 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 Trientalis borealis Raf.Trientalis borealis Raf.1900A. P. Chute
A photograph of the species Boletus griseus, not of this specimenBoletus griseus Frost1898H. Webster
A photograph of the species Dumetella carolinensis, not of this specimenDumetella carolinensis (Linnaeus, 1766)1898Collector(s): Will C. ColtLincoln
A photograph of the species Esox americanus, not of this specimenEsox americanus Gmelin, 17891898E. PrebleMaple Meadow Brook near Wilmington, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Exosporium pusillum, not of this specimenExosporium pusillum P.Karst.1898King C. A.Stony Brook
A photograph of the species Lophodermium pinastri, not of this specimenLophodermium pinastri (Schrad.) Chevall.1898Hubbard F. T.; Hall G. G.Lincoln
A photograph of the species Pipilo erythrophthalmus, not of this specimenPipilo erythrophthalmus erythrophthalmus (Linnaeus, 1758)1898not recordedLincoln
A photograph of the species Podura aquatica, not of this specimenPodura aquatica C.Linnæus, 17581898not recorded
A photograph of the species Rosa nitida, not of this specimenRosa nitida Willd.1898C. H. Knowlton
A photograph of the species Salix eriocephala, not of this specimenSalix eriocephala Michx.1898E. F. Williams
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.1900Thaxter, R.Stony Brook
A photograph of the species Betula alleghaniensis, not of this specimenBetula alleghaniensis Britton1900E. F. Williams

All 613 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 Riverside: 1 past producer, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Copper. 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
Carlisle DepositCopperOccurrence
Cu ProspectCopperPast Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms nearby

1 since 2025

The National Weather Service names Riverside in 1 storm report between 2025 and 2025: 1 thunderstorm wind. 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
September 2025Thunderstorm WindRiverside$10,000In Bedford, a tree was down on a house on Appletree Lane.

Every storm recorded in Middlesex 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
Rio Vista0.5 miles41
South Billerica1.4 miles41
Nutting Lake1.8 miles41
River Pines2.1 miles41
Bedford Springs2.2 miles41
Billerica2.4 miles41
Carlisle2.5 miles41
North Billerica3.4 miles41

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611866. 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.