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

Templeton, Massachusetts

33 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Templeton town. It lies in ZIP code area 01468. It stands on Dolbier Hill. The Survey maps it on the Templeton quadrangle.

Templeton within Worcester County

Then and now

1887 to 1988

The same ground, surveyed 101 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Templeton, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Templeton, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

33 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.

Photographs

1 photograph,

Taken for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration, who photographed the country between 1935 and 1944. Works of United States government photographers, with no known restriction on use. Each opens its catalogue record.

John W. Stile House, Templeton Common, Templeton, Worcester County, MA
Unattributed, . Library of Congress

Fires nearby

58 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 58 fires within 5 miles of Templeton between 2015 and 2020, burning about 30 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 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 burning	35
Smoking	8
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7
Recreation and ceremony	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Arson/incendiarism	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	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
27 September 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
28 August 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
6 July 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 July 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 July 2016	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
29 July 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
26 July 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
24 July 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Worcester County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,813 shown

Museums hold 1,813 specimens collected within 10 miles of Templeton between 1839 and 1975: 884 Animalia, 481 Fungi, 420 Plantae, 16 Unrecorded, 12 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A., A. C. V. Schott, A. J. Stone 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
Osmunda regalis L.	1900	Bates, J.A.	Royalston.
Bartramia pomiformis Hedw.	1839	unknown	Barre
Carex gracillima Schwein.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Carex intumescens Rudge	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Carex lacustris Willd.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Carex stipata Muhl. ex Willd.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop.	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Cypripedium acaule Aiton	1839	M. S. Bebb	Barre
Peltandra virginica (L.) Schott	1892	A.
Rosa rubiginosa L.	1892	not recorded
Carex scoparia Schkuhr ex Willd.	1896	W. Deane
Crucibulum vulgare Tul. & C.Tul.	1896	not recorded	Prospect Hill

All 1,813 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

8 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Templeton: 6 past producers, 2 producers. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
City of Gardner	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Dines Roger Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Highway Pit & Gardner Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Hubbardston Hwy Dept Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Otter River Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Templeton Hwy Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Templeton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Templeton Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Worcester County

Storms nearby

17 since 1995

The National Weather Service names Templeton in 17 storm reports between 1995 and 2025: 13 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 1 lightning. 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
July 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$75,000	Thunderstorm winds downed several trees and large limbs in Templeton, Gardner, and Hubbardston.
September 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$35,000	Thunderstorm winds brought down large trees in Otter River State Forest.
July 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$20,000	Multiple trees were downed in Templeton.
May 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$5,000	At 855 PM EST, an amateur radio operator reported multiple trees down in Templeton.
May 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$5,000	Trees were downed and siding blown off a building in Gardner. Trained weather spotters reported 60 to 62 mph wind gusts on their home weather stations.
June 2005	Lightning	Templeton	$5,000	no account filed
September 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$2,000	In Templeton, trees and powerlines were down along Norcross Hill Rd.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$1,300	In Templeton, a large tree was down on power lines on Barre Road near Dudley Road.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	$500	In Templeton, a tree was down on wires blocking River Rd.
July 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	East Templeton	-	In Templeton, multiple trees and power lines were down including Main St near Cardinal Ln and in the area of Royalston Rd.
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	-	Dime-size hail accompanied severe thunderstorms in several towns in Franklin and Hampshire Counties. As the storms moved east, damaging thunderstorm winds knocked down trees and power lines in parts of northern Worcester County.
August 2015	Hail	Templeton	-	no account filed
May 2013	Hail	East Templeton	-	no account filed
March 2012	Hail	Templeton	-	no account filed
July 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	-	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	-	no account filed
July 1997	Thunderstorm Wind	Templeton	-	no account filed

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
Templeton Station	0.8 miles	33
Partidgeville	1.2 miles	33
East Templeton	1.7 miles	33
Brooks Village	2.2 miles	33
Goulding Village	2.4 miles	33
Pitcherville	2.8 miles	33
Otter River	3.0 miles	33
Phillipston	3.5 miles	32

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 609989. 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.