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

Rocky Hill, Massachusetts

41 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Milford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01757. It stands on Rocky Woods Range. The Survey maps it on the Holliston quadrangle.

Rocky Hill within Worcester 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 Rocky Hill, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Rocky Hill, surveyed 1887

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.

Fires nearby

78 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 78 fires within 5 miles of Rocky Hill between 2003 and 2020, burning about 183 acres in total. None started naturally. 36 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
Arson/incendiarism	36
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	16
Debris and open burning	15
Recreation and ceremony	4
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Smoking	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
4 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
28 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
27 September 2015	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
27 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
25 September 2015	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
30 August 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BELLINGHAM
24 August 2016	Arson/incendiarism	3.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MILFORD
24 August 2016	Arson/incendiarism	4.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	MILFORD

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 346 shown

Museums hold 346 specimens collected within 10 miles of Rocky Hill between 1844 and 1975: 141 Plantae, 119 Animalia, 83 Fungi, 3 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. P. D. Piguet, A. R. Hodgdon; F. L. Steele 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
Trichophorum planifolium (Spreng.) Palla	1844	Collector unspecified	Uxbridge
Potamogeton epihydrus Raf.	1848	J. W. Robbins	Uxbridge
Potamogeton bicupulatus Fernald	1854	W. J. Robbins	Uxbridge
Carex vulpinoidea Michx.	1861	not recorded
Arctium minus (Hill) Bernh.	1865	J. W. Robbins
Juncus militaris Bigelow	1866	J. W. Robbins	Blackstone River
Phyllosticta pyrina Sacc.	1893	R. A. Harper
Hydnum L.	1900	not recorded
Ameiurus nebulosus (Lesueur, 1819)	1928	CL & LC Hubbs	West River at Uxbridge, trib. to Blackwater River; Providence River system
Carex communis L.H.Bailey	1928	F. W. Hunnewell	Rocky ledge, Hopkinton.
Etheostoma olmstedi Storer, 1842	1928	CL & LC Hubbs	West River at Uxbridge, trib. to Blackwater River; Providence River system
Lepomis gibbosus (Linnaeus, 1758)	1928	CL & LC Hubbs	West River at Uxbridge, trib. to Blackwater River; Providence River system

All 346 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 13 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 13 workings within 5 miles of Rocky Hill: 10 past producers, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Barretto Granite Co	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Castellucci and Sons	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
H E Fletcher	Granite	Past Producer	Granite
Milford Pink Granite Quarry	Granite	Past Producer
Milford Quarry	Granite	Producer
Bird Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Finn Brothers Sand and Gravel	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Garbarino Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Holliston Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Lowland Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

3 since 2013

The National Weather Service names Rocky Hill in 3 storm reports between 2013 and 2022: 1 lightning, 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 flood. 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 2013	Lightning	Rocky Hill	$100,000	A house on South Central Street was struck by lightning, igniting a fire in the attic. It extended to a bedroom and caused significant structural damage and damaged the chimney.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Rocky Hill	$750	In Milford, a tree was down on a house on East Street Extension.
September 2022	Flood	Rocky Hill	-	In Milford, a portion of East Main St. was flooded and requiring DPW assistance. Relayed by amateur radio.

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
Milford	1.8 miles	42
Hopedale	3.2 miles	42
Spindleville	3.4 miles	50
North Milford	3.4 miles	42
South Milford	3.5 miles	50
White City	3.6 miles	50
Mendon	4.7 miles	50
Upton	6.3 miles	42

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611729. 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.