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

Thompsonville, Massachusetts

46 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Newton City. It lies in ZIP code area 02459. It stands on Bald Pate Hill. The Survey maps it on the Newton quadrangle.

Thompsonville 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 Thompsonville, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Thompsonville, 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.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Newton city, The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

From History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 - Newton City

Newton

JbIj^ 1700, M. 63. Capt. Noab, of Newton, an Officer in the Expedition against Canada. Killed in battle with the Freoch and Indians July C, 1C90. M. 50, leaving t son Thomas. Ebeneser, oC Newton, died June 21, 1691. .fi. 45. ... . . J. B. Jepson, Newton Comer, rereals many gravestones whose inscriptions are no longer l^ble, and others, recalling the names which filled a laige place in the early history of the town, and Belonged to the founders of its institutions and the authors of its prosperity.

Read the rest of this passage

In the county-history sources

124,955 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 Newton City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

From the original purchase in 1753 by David Bemis, tiie property on the Watertown side of the river has been in the Bemis family more or less exclusively for more than a century and a quarter, and on the Newton side for nearly a century.

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 Newton City - it names this place 3 more 3 times.

Fires near this place

102 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 102 fires within 5 miles of Thompsonville between 2003 and 2020, burning about 381 acres in total. None started naturally. None 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
Recreation and ceremony54
Missing data/not specified/undetermined33
Smoking10
Equipment and vehicle use2
Other causes1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1
Debris and open burning1

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
8 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlNEEDHAM
3 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlNEEDHAM
23 September 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlWELLESLEY
21 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlNEEDHAM
2 September 2018Equipment and vehicle useunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBROOKLINE

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 2,519 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 2,519 specimens collected within 10 miles of Thompsonville between 1898 and 1975: 1,258 Animalia, 653 Plantae, 548 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 14 Chromista, 13 Bacteria, 4 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A. B. Seymour 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 Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 18221900not recordedWayland
Specimen of Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) FernaldLysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald1900A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.1898Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Antennaria howellii, not of this specimenAntennaria howellii subsp. canadensis (Greene) R.J.Bayer1898Williams, E.F.
A photograph of the species Antennaria parlinii, not of this specimenAntennaria parlinii subsp. fallax (Greene) R.J.Bayer & Stebbins1898not recorded
A photograph of the species Antennaria plantaginifolia, not of this specimenAntennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Hook.1898not recorded
A photograph of the species Aquilegia canadensis, not of this specimenAquilegia canadensis L.1898M. I. GunnNatick
A photograph of the species Acanthis flammea, not of this specimenAcanthis flammea flammea (Linnaeus, 1758)1900ZAPPEY, W RROSLINDALE
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.
A photograph of the species Agaricus brunnescens, not of this specimenAgaricus brunnescens Peck1900Morris, G. E.Waltham
A photograph of the species Alnus incana, not of this specimenAlnus incana subsp. rugosa (Du Roi) R.T.Clausen1900J. Murdoch, Jr.Roxbury

All 2,519 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

6 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Thompsonville: 4 past producers, 1 unknown, 1 plant. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Tantalum, Niobium (Columbium). 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
Nrc Inc--Newton, Ma.Tantalum, Niobium (Columbium)Plant
West Roxbury Crushed Stone OperatioStone, Crushed/BrokenUnknown
Greendale PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Town of NeedhamSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Town of WellesleySand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Town of WellesleySand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer

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
Newton Highlands0.9 miles46
Newton Center1.3 miles46
Chestnut Hill1.4 miles46
Oak Hill Park1.4 miles46
Eliot1.6 miles46
Newton Upper Falls1.9 miles46
Newton2.0 miles46
Waban2.4 miles46

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612393. 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.