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

West Bedford, Massachusetts

48 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Bedford town. It lies in ZIP code area 01730. It stands on Balls Hill. The Survey maps it on the Concord quadrangle.

West Bedford within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of West Bedford, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of West Bedford, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

48 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 Bedford town, in the words of 1908.

1908, Bedford Town

Biographical

The subject of this sketch was born in Salem, Mass., May 7, 1820, in a house on the opposite corner to the one in which White was murdered by the Kuappa and Crowninshield. In 1821 his parents removed to Moultonborough, N. H., where they lived a few years, and William was sent to the village school for a brief term.

Read the rest of this passage

Fires nearby

40 since 1992

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 40 fires within 5 miles of West Bedford between 1992 and 2020, burning about 36 acres in total. 1 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
Debris and open burning18
Missing data/not specified/undetermined13
Railroad operations and maintenance3
Recreation and ceremony3
Equipment and vehicle use1
Other causes1
Natural1

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
5 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
16 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
1 September 2001Naturalunder an acreMinute Man National Historical ParkFISKEHILL
26 August 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
19 July 2020Railroad operations and maintenanceunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
6 June 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
4 June 2020Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,034 shown

Museums hold 1,034 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Bedford between 1898 and 1975: 465 Animalia, 316 Plantae, 232 Fungi, 9 Chromista, 6 Unrecorded, 4 Protozoa, 2 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by ?, A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley 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 Trientalis borealis Raf.Trientalis borealis Raf.1900A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.1898Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Boletus griseus, not of this specimenBoletus griseus Frost1898H. Webster
A photograph of the species Cladonia rangiferina, not of this specimenCladonia rangiferina (L.) Weber1898Francis P DanielsArlington Heights
A photograph of the species Cucurbitaria elongata, not of this specimenCucurbitaria elongata (Fr.) Grev.1898J. G. Hall
A photograph of the species Dumetella carolinensis, not of this specimenDumetella carolinensis (Linnaeus, 1766)1898Collector(s): Will C. ColtLincoln
A photograph of the species Agaricus brunnescens, not of this specimenAgaricus brunnescens Peck1900Morris, G. E.Waltham
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.1900Thaxter, RolandStony Brook, Mass. [Massachusetts]
A photograph of the species Betula alleghaniensis, not of this specimenBetula alleghaniensis Britton1900E. F. Williams
A photograph of the species Boletus auriporus, not of this specimenBoletus auriporus Peck1900G. E. Morris
A photograph of the species Boletus badius, not of this specimenBoletus badius (Fr.) Fr.1900G. E. Morris

All 1,034 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 West Bedford: 3 past producers, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Copper. 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
Carlisle DepositCopperOccurrence
Cu ProspectCopperPast Producer
D R RaymondSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Thomas Quinn Co 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
Meriams Corner1.3 miles48
Concord2.2 miles48
Bedford2.3 miles48
Plain3.0 miles48
Bedford Springs3.5 miles41
Baker Bridge3.6 miles48
Lincoln3.7 miles48
South Billerica3.9 miles41

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611887. 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.