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

South Essex, Massachusetts

42 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1997. It stands in Essex town. It lies in ZIP code area 01929. It stands on Alewife Brook. The Survey maps it on the Ipswich quadrangle.

South Essex within Essex County

Then and now

1888 to 1997

The same ground, surveyed 109 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of South Essex, surveyed 1997
Topographic sheet of South Essex, surveyed 1888

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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Essex town, in the words of 1897.

1897, Essex Town

By Eliza Philbrick

We have but a faint conception of the sheep the privilege of grazing them on severe and varied labors of pioneer life, the common lands, and dogs that had Nearly everything we use today we buy killed sheep were hung, and the owners ready-made, while in the old days the of the guilty canines had also to pay colonists had to produce whatever they twice the value of the sheep killed, needed.

Read the rest of this passage

Fires nearby

37 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 37 fires within 5 miles of South Essex between 2015 and 2020, burning about 28 acres in total. None started naturally. 4 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 burning16
Smoking6
Recreation and ceremony5
Arson/incendiarism4
Railroad operations and maintenance3
Equipment and vehicle use1
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
28 August 2016Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlIPSWICH
25 August 2017Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 July 2016Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlIPSWICH
21 July 2016Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlGLOUCESTER
18 July 2016Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlGLOUCESTER
3 June 2020Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
27 June 2016Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlIPSWICH
19 June 2016Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlHAMILTON

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Essex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 6,711 shown

Museums hold 6,711 specimens collected within 10 miles of South Essex between 1817 and 1975: 2,369 Plantae, 2,094 Animalia, 1,266 Fungi, 458 Chromista, 377 Unrecorded, 95 Protozoa, 52 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A H HIGGINSON, A Perlmutter, A. A. Eaton 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 Caloplaca murorum Th.Fr.Caloplaca murorum Th.Fr.1900Clara E. Cummings
A photograph of the species Coluber constrictor, not of this specimenColuber constrictor constrictor Linnaeus, 17581817not recordedLoblolly Cove, Cape Ann
A photograph of the species Brasenia schreberi, not of this specimenBrasenia schreberi J.F.Gmel.1821not recordedPleasant Pond, Wenham, Mass.
A photograph of the species Glyceria obtusa, not of this specimenGlyceria obtusa (Muhl.) Trin.1838W Oakes
A photograph of the species Lecanora tartarea, not of this specimenLecanora tartarea (L.) Ach.1839E. TuckermanManchester
A photograph of the species Ochrolechia yasudae, not of this specimenOchrolechia yasudae Vainio1839Tuckerman, E.[USA] Manchester, Massachusetts.
A photograph of the species Clethra alnifolia, not of this specimenClethra alnifolia L.1840OakesHerbariumRowley
A photograph of the species Euphorbia polygonifolia, not of this specimenEuphorbia polygonifolia L.1840Wolle, J.Ipswich
A photograph of the species Iva frutescens, not of this specimenIva frutescens L.1840Oakesad Ipswich
A photograph of the species Potentilla anserina, not of this specimenPotentilla anserina L.1840Wolle, J.Ipswich
A photograph of the species Sisymbrium officinale, not of this specimenSisymbrium officinale (L.) Scop.1840OakesIpswich
A photograph of the species Laminaria saccharina, not of this specimenLaminaria saccharina (L.) J.V.Lamour.1842N. PikePlum Island

All 6,711 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

4 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of South Essex: 3 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. 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
Atwater PitSand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Manchester Sand and Stone Co. QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
John R MorseSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Morse PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

Every working recorded in Essex County

Storms nearby

1 since 2010

The National Weather Service names South Essex in 1 storm report between 2010 and 2010: 1 flood. The reports record 1 injury. 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
March 2010FloodSouth Essex1 hurt, $9,800,000Several small streams rose above flood stage across Essex County, including the Ipswich River at Ipswich and South Middleton, the Shawsheen River at Andover, and the Parker River at Byfield. This river flooding, coupled with heavy rain and poor drainage flooding, resulted in a federal disaster declaration for seven counties in Massachusetts, including Essex County. ||Numerous streets were closed and basements flooded in Peabody, Salem, Newbury, Haverhill, Topsfield, Andover, Gloucester, Newburyport, Byfield, Middleton, and Rowley, including Route 128 S in Peabody and Route 1 in Topsfield. Portions of Merrimack College in Andover were flooded, submerging trees downed by the wind. Several cars were stranded in floodwaters, including one in Saugus at the Shaws parking lot, three on Woburn Street in Andover, and two on Foster Street in Peabody. Several people were trapped in the cars in Peabody, but were successfully rescued. Many streets in downtown Peabody were under four feet of water. Collections at the Stevens Memorial Library in North Andover were damaged by floodwaters.||In Lawrence, a total of 50 homes on Willow Street, Exchange Street, and Myrtle Street were evacuated. In addition, twenty eight people in the Holiday Inn Express on Winthrop Street were evacuated due to flooding in the hotel. Approximately 25 three tenant homes along the Spicket River were evacuated. The Carriage Hill Apartments in Amesbury were evacuated due to flooding from a nearby pond. The Washington Park Condos and all 110 residents of the Marland Place Assisted Living Center in Andover were evacuated.||A 500 foot stretch of Route 62 in Danvers was closed when a fifteen foot deep sinkhole developed because of an underground culvert that was washed out after nearly eight inches of rain fell. It reopened nearly three weeks later after work was delayed by a second major rainstorm.|A sewer treatment plant in Gloucester processed roughly 15 million gallons of wastewater during the storm, nearly 5 times capacity. As a result, excess wastewater was combined with runoff and released into the harbor.||One fatality indirectly resulted from the flooding when a 49 year old man drowned while pumping water from his office. A 15 year old girl was hospitalized for hypothermia after spending 45 minutes in the Ipswich River when the canoe she was in capsized.

Every storm recorded in Essex 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
Essex0.8 miles42
Essex Falls1.2 miles42
West Gloucester3.3 miles27
Manchester-by-the-Sea3.5 miles40
Hamilton4.0 miles42
Kettle Cove Village4.0 miles27
Wingaersheek (historical)4.2 miles28
Riverview Landing4.3 miles28

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 Q122547285The 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 614610. 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.