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

Robin Hill, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Marlborough City. It lies in ZIP code area 01752. It stands on Wheeler Hill. The Survey maps it on the Marlborough quadrangle.

Robin Hill within Middlesex County

Then and now

1887 to 1989

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 Robin Hill, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Robin Hill, surveyed 1887

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.

In the county-history sources

43,359 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Marlborough City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Here also is the tomb of ^Ir. Brimsmead, wholly effaced ; and that of Mr. Breck, which is in a good state of preservation. The second burying-place is immediately in the rear of the high school ; besides these there are The Brigham, The Easterly, The Morse (sometimes called The Farm), The Weeks, The Chipman, The Robin Hill, and The Pleasant Street cemeteries.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Marlborough City.

Fires near this place

128 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 128 fires within 5 miles of Robin Hill between 2015 and 2020, burning about 70 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 11 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
Debris and open burning57
Missing data/not specified/undetermined30
Recreation and ceremony18
Arson/incendiarism11
Smoking6
Misuse of fire by a minor3
Power generation/transmission/distribution2
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
7 September 2016Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMARLBORO
7 September 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
5 September 2016Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
28 September 2019Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
20 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
20 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
16 September 2020Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 471 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 471 specimens collected within 10 miles of Robin Hill between 1898 and 1975: 320 Animalia, 141 Plantae, 10 Fungi. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by Altpeter, Arthur French, B. N. Gates 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
A photograph of the species Bromus ciliatus, not of this specimenBromus ciliatus L.1898Ernest Charles SmithFramingham.
A photograph of the species Bromus secalinus, not of this specimenBromus secalinus L.1898Arthur FrenchFramingham.
A photograph of the species Carex brevior, not of this specimenCarex brevior (Dewey) Mack. ex Lunell1898Ernest Charles SmithFramingham.
A photograph of the species Carex laxiflora, not of this specimenCarex laxiflora Lam.1898Ernest Charles SmithFramingham.
A photograph of the species Carex pallescens, not of this specimenCarex pallescens L.1898Ernest Charles SmithFramingham.
A photograph of the species Carex straminea, not of this specimenCarex straminea Willd. ex Schkuhr1898Ernest Charles SmithFramingham.
A photograph of the species Carex vulgaris, not of this specimenCarex vulgaris var. hydrophila Holm1898Arthur FrenchFramingham.
A photograph of the species Dichanthelium sabulorum, not of this specimenDichanthelium sabulorum var. patulum (Scribn. & Merr.) Gould & C.A.Clark1898Ernest Charles SmithFramingham.
A photograph of the species Glyceria melicaria, not of this specimenGlyceria melicaria (Michx.) F.T.Hubb.1898Ernest Charles SmithFramingham.
A photograph of the species Crataegus coccinea, not of this specimenCrataegus coccinea L.1900not recorded
A photograph of the species Capnodium Mont., not of this specimenCapnodium Mont., 18491930AltpeterAshland
A photograph of the species Cistothorus stellaris, not of this specimenCistothorus stellaris (J.F.Naumann, 1823)1930Collector(s): James Lee PetersHarvard

All 471 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 16 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 16 workings within 5 miles of Robin Hill: 11 past producers, 4 producers, 1 unknown. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Dimension, 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
Berlin Stone Co QuarryStone, DimensionProducer
Gneiss QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Bates Sand and Gravel Co.Sand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Berin PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Berlin PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Berlin Town PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
C and M EnterprisesSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Casaceli TruckingSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Casaceli Trucking PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
E L Dauphanis IncSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary

Every working 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
Marlborough2.5 miles42
Hudson2.7 miles43
Browns Corner2.7 miles43
Marlborough Junction3.5 miles42
Gleasondale Station4.5 miles43
Gleasondale4.8 miles43
Stow7.1 miles43
Lower Village7.8 miles43

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611386. 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.