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

Wakefield, Massachusetts

40 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1988. It stands in Wakefield town. It lies in ZIP code area 01880. It stands on Monk Island. The Survey maps it on the Reading quadrangle.

Wakefield within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1988

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 Wakefield, surveyed 1988

Topographic sheet of Wakefield, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

40 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

8,069 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 Wakefield Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Tyngsborough is the birthplace of John S. Sleeper, Esq., editor of the Boston Journal from 1834 to 185-i. He was born here September 21, 1794. He was mayor of Roxbury from 1856 to 1858, and author of Tales of the Ocean, 1843 ; Salt IFater BiilMes, 1854; Jack in the Forecastle, 1860; and Mark Rowland, 1867. He was a graceful and effective writer.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

TITS town is old, though its inline is new. Its history, as the abode of white men, runs back to 1639, when, under a special grant of land from the General Court to the town of Lynn of " four miles square," it was settled by families coin- \\\'S mostly from Lynn, and I'lok the name of Lynn Village. This grant included the territory substantially within the limits of tiie present towns of AYaketiekl and Reading. Tlie first settlement was made in what is now Wakefield, and in 1644, seven houses having been erected, seven families located, and a humble church edifice built, the village was made a town corporate, with the name of Reading. In 1651 a second grant of territory was made to the township of two miles square, including substantially what is now North Reading. In 1713 the inhabitants of the last-named territory, " having become of sufficient and competent numbers to call, settle, and maintain a Godly, learned, orthodox minister," were incorporated as a distinct parish by the name of tlie North Precinct of Reading, the remaining portion of the town being known as the First Parish. Li 1769 the northwesterly part of the First Parish, the part then called Woodend, was incorporated by the name of the West Parish of Reading, forming the nucleus of the present town of I

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Reading. In ISH the old town was divided, and the First or South Parish, then commonly known as the Old Parish, including the present territory of Wakefield, was incorporated as a new town under the name of South Reading.

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 Wakefield Town - it names this place 26 more 26 times.

Fires near this place

68 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 68 fires within 5 miles of Wakefield between 2003 and 2020, burning about 27 acres in total. None started naturally. 8 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
Recreation and ceremony	18
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	16
Debris and open burning	13
Arson/incendiarism	8
Smoking	4
Misuse of fire by a minor	4
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2

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
25 September 2015	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	SAUGUS
23 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
15 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	LYNNFIELD
4 August 2015	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	AMESBURY
31 August 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
30 August 2016	Smoking	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	LYNNFIELD
26 August 2017	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,085 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,085 specimens collected within 10 miles of Wakefield between 1898 and 1975: 423 Animalia, 403 Plantae, 224 Fungi, 17 Bacteria, 8 Unrecorded, 5 Chromista, 5 Protozoa. 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.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Trientalis borealis Raf.	1900	A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.	1898	Collector unspecified
Cantharellus infundibuliformis (Scop.) Fr.	1898	not recorded	Melrose.
Cladonia coccifera (L.) Willd.	1898	Francis P Daniels	Cambridge
Cladonia rangiferina (L.) Weber	1898	Francis P Daniels	Arlington Heights
Cordyceps capitata (Holmsk.) Link	1898	Conant, [?] F.	Middlesex Fells
Ctenidium malacodes Mitt.	1898	not recorded
Cucurbitaria elongata (Fr.) Grev.	1898	J. G. Hall
Acer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Acer palmatum var. dissectum (Thunb.) Miq.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Aphanochaete repens A.Braun	1900	F. S. Collins	Middlesex Fells, Wright's Pond, on Oedogonium, etc.
Batrachospermum gelatinosum (L.) DC.	1900	F. S. Collins	on stones in stream

All 1,085 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 11 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 11 workings within 5 miles of Wakefield: 5 past producers, 4 producers, 2 plants. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Silica. 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
Austin Hastings--Woburn, Ma.	Iron	Plant
Ferro Ceramic Grinding--Wakefield	Silica	Plant
Drinkwater Quarry	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
New England Crushing Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Philip Drinkwater	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Marlborough Plant/Polishing Plates	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Richardson Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Roma Stone Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Saugus Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Trimount Bituminous Products Co	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this place

12 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Wakefield in 12 storm reports between 1998 and 2020: 5 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 1 flash flood, 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
September 2010	Lightning	Wakefield	1 hurt	A 55 year old woman was injured when lightning struck her house in Wakefield. The woman was ironing when lightning struck and was thrown about 6 feet. She temporarily lost feeling in her right arm and was transported to the hospital. Doctors evaluated her, determining that no permanent damage was done but the strike had affected her right eardrum and thrown off her equilibrium. The house was found to be undamaged.
June 1998	Flash Flood	Wakefield	$570,000	Crystal Lake
August 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Wakefield	$10,000	Trees and wires were downed onto a house on Parker Road by thunderstorm winds.
July 2009	Thunderstorm Wind	Wakefield	$10,000	Trees and wires on Muriel Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
August 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Wakefield	$5,000	A tree was downed on a house at the intersection of Prospect and Sheffield Streets.
May 2015	Thunderstorm Wind	Wakefield	$2,000	A large tree limb was downed onto the MBTA tracks near Greenwood Station.
July 2006	Flood	Wakefield	$2,000	no account filed
August 2020	Hail	Wakefield	-	In Wakefield quarter sized hail was reported.
June 2008	Hail	Wakefield	-	no account filed
July 2006	Hail	Wakefield	-	no account filed
June 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Wakefield	-	no account filed
July 1999	Hail	Wakefield	-	no account filed

Every storm 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.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Wakefield Junction	0.7 miles	46
Montrose	1.2 miles	40
Farm Hill	1.3 miles	46
Reading	1.8 miles	40
Greenwood	1.8 miles	46
Stoneham	2.3 miles	46
Reading Highlands	2.4 miles	40
Lindenwood	2.4 miles	46

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 612838. 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.