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

Symmes Corner, Massachusetts

46 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Winchester town. It lies in ZIP code area 01890. It stands on Aberjona River. The Survey maps it on the Lexington quadrangle.

Symmes Corner within Middlesex County

Then and now

1893 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 96 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Symmes Corner, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Symmes Corner, surveyed 1893

Topographic sheets covering this place

46 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

21,644 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 Winchester Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Eihiciiliiiiiiil. - No school-house appears to have been bnilt in wliat are now the limits of the town before the yearl7yO,and though a public school was some years appointed to be kept, it could be accommodated only in some private house, and then only for a few weeks in the course of the season. Other years the children who attended school had to be provided with a private one at the cost of the parents, or travel to the centre of Woburn and Medford, some two miles distant. At the incorporation of the town there were only two schoolhouses within its limits, - one in the Centre (formerly South "Woburn), and the other on the Medford road, near Symmcs Corner (formerly Medford).

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 Winchester Town - it names this place 1 more 1 time.

Fires near this place

80 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 80 fires within 5 miles of Symmes Corner between 2015 and 2020, burning about 102 acres in total. None started naturally. 28 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/incendiarism28
Missing data/not specified/undetermined20
Debris and open burning14
Recreation and ceremony11
Smoking3
Misuse of fire by a minor2
Power generation/transmission/distribution1
Equipment and vehicle use1

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
4 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
21 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
18 September 2016Arson/incendiarismunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlMELROSE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,778 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,778 specimens collected within 10 miles of Symmes Corner between 1898 and 1975: 764 Animalia, 554 Plantae, 392 Fungi, 30 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 12 Chromista, 9 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper 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
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.1898Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Bulbostylis capillaris, not of this specimenBulbostylis capillaris var. crebra Fernald1898C. H. KnowltonBoston.
A photograph of the species Cantharellus cinnabarinus, not of this specimenCantharellus cinnabarinus (Schwein.) Schwein.1898not recordedNewton.
A photograph of the species Cantharellus infundibuliformis, not of this specimenCantharellus infundibuliformis (Scop.) Fr.1898not recordedMelrose.
A photograph of the species Cladonia coccifera, not of this specimenCladonia coccifera (L.) Willd.1898Francis P DanielsCambridge
A photograph of the species Cladonia rangiferina, not of this specimenCladonia rangiferina (L.) Weber1898Francis P DanielsArlington Heights
A photograph of the species Cordyceps capitata, not of this specimenCordyceps capitata (Holmsk.) Link1898Conant, [?] F.Middlesex Fells
A photograph of the species Crataegus coccinea, not of this specimenCrataegus coccinea L.1898NoneHarvard University Arboretum
A photograph of the species Ctenidium malacodes, not of this specimenCtenidium malacodes Mitt.1898not recorded
A photograph of the species Acer carpinifolium, not of this specimenAcer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.1900A. K. HarrisonHarvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
A photograph of the species Acer palmatum, not of this specimenAcer palmatum var. dissectum (Thunb.) Miq.1900A. K. HarrisonHarvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.

All 1,778 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 12 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 12 workings within 5 miles of Symmes Corner: 5 past producers, 4 producers, 3 plants. 7 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Lead, Peat. 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
Austin Hastings--Woburn, Ma.IronPlant
Mahoney:S Rocky LedgePeatPast ProducerPeat
Rocky Ledge PitClayPast Producer
Somerville Smelting Co.LeadPlant
Syncor Prdts Co--Malden, Ma.SilicaPlant
Malden QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Roma Stone PitStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Burlington S & G Co., Inc. PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
Burlington Sand and GravelSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Joseph Roberto 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
Wedgemere0.4 miles46
Winchester0.7 miles46
West Medford1.4 miles46
Winchester Highlands1.7 miles46
Medford Hillside2.1 miles46
Woburn Highlands2.2 miles46
Medford2.2 miles46
Arlington2.3 miles46

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612245. 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.