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

West Chatham, Massachusetts

34 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1993. It stands in Chatham town. It lies in ZIP code area 02633. It stands on Bucks Creek. The Survey maps it on the Chatham quadrangle. 1,619 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 49 feet above sea level.

West Chatham within Barnstable County

Population over time

2 figures

West Chatham grew from 1,410 to 1,619 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
20101,410
20201,619+209 (+15%)

Then and now

1888 to 1993

The same ground, surveyed 105 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 Chatham, surveyed 1993
Topographic sheet of West Chatham, surveyed 1888

Topographic sheets covering this place

34 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 1890 county history

50 words on this township

The county history of 1890 has no passage naming this settlement, which was common for the smaller places. Its township is covered in full.

The chapter on Chatham Town covers the township.

Read the chapter on Chatham Town - 50 words.

Fires nearby

60 since 2003

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 60 fires within 5 miles of West Chatham between 2003 and 2020, burning about 17 acres in total. 4 started naturally. 6 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined27
Debris and open burning9
Arson/incendiarism6
Recreation and ceremony5
Equipment and vehicle use5
Natural4
Smoking2
Fireworks1
Power generation/transmission/distribution1

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
7 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control1968
5 September 2015Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control1944
24 September 2020Debris and open burningunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
17 September 2017Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
16 September 2020Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
10 September 2015Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control1993
6 August 2020Fireworksunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 August 2017Missing 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 Barnstable County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 1,955 shown

Museums hold 1,955 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Chatham between 1840 and 1975: 939 Animalia, 795 Plantae, 153 Fungi, 37 Unrecorded, 18 Bacteria, 12 Chromista, 1 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. Pealey, A. R. Hodgdon 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
A photograph of the species Carya tomentosa, not of this specimenCarya tomentosa (Lam.) Nutt.1840Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Alosa mediocris, not of this specimenAlosa mediocris (Mitchill, 1814)1871MCZ teamBrewster, Cape Cod, Massachusetts
A photograph of the species Bittiolum alternatum, not of this specimenBittiolum alternatum (Say, 1822)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Buccinum undatum, not of this specimenBuccinum undatum Linnaeus, 17581872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
Gastropoda1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Helix Linnaeus, not of this specimenHelix Linnaeus, 17581872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Hydrobia minuta, not of this specimenHydrobia minuta (Totten, 1834)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Lacuna vincta, not of this specimenLacuna vincta (Montagu, 1803)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Littorina littorea, not of this specimenLittorina littorea (Linnaeus, 1758)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Littorina rudis, not of this specimenLittorina rudis (Maton, 1797)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Lunatia heros, not of this specimenLunatia heros (Say, 1822)1872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod
A photograph of the species Melampus bidentatus, not of this specimenMelampus bidentatus Say, 18221872Smith, S. I.; Harger, O., U.S. Fish CommissionCape Cod

All 1,955 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

2 within 5 miles

The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of West Chatham: 1 past producer, 1 producer. 1 still produces. 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.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Nickerson T W PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Pine Hill PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer

Every working recorded in Barnstable County

Storms nearby

1 since 2019

The National Weather Service names West Chatham in 1 storm report between 2019 and 2019: 1 flood. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
September 2019FloodWest Chatham-In South Chatham, Commerce Park South roadway was flooded and coned off.

Every storm recorded in Barnstable 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
Chatham1.7 miles34
South Chatham1.8 miles31
Chatham Port1.9 miles34
Quitnesset2.3 miles34
East Harwich2.3 miles31
North Chatham2.4 miles34
South Harwich2.8 miles31
Shooters Island4.0 miles32

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on West ChathamAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q7984702The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 616013. 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.