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

West Somerville, Massachusetts

46 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1893 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Somerville City. It lies in ZIP code area 02144. It stands on Powder House Hill. The Survey maps it on the Boston North quadrangle.

West Somerville 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 West Somerville, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of West Somerville, 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.

In the county-history sources

55,107 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 Somerville City. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

This was for Somerville a day of small things. She began her career as a sparsely populated farming district, with less than two hundred dwellings scattered over her whole territory. She numbered but a thousand and thirteen inhabitants, with a school population of two hundred and ninety-three, distributed in six schools, - the Prospect Hill grammar and primary, the Milk Row primary, on the site of the cemetery, the upper Winter Hill primary, in Central Street, the lower Winter Hill primary, in Broadway, near Franklin Street, and the Russell District School, kept in a private house in the Walnut Hill neighborhood. A single dilapidated globe and two blackboards, three feet square, comprised the entire apparatus of her schools.

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

Laud seldom changed hands, and had never been of sufficient value to be calculated by the foot. The highways were merely country roads, with grassy borders and in poor repair. Many of the old range-ways, previously described, had been enclosed by private parties. Highland Avenue was still a cart-path, lined with barberry-bushes and surrounded by open lands. It was impassable at night. Franklin Street could only be traversed on foot. East Somerville was in the fields. Spring Hill, whicli took its name in 1841 from the fine spring upon its summit, was just receiving its first streets. There were not a half-dozen houses in West Somerville between the junction of Elm and Milk streets and the Powder-House ; and the location which is now dignified by the name of Union Square was at that time merely a " country cross-road." There was no cluster of dwellings anywhere of sufficient importance to be designated a village. The total valuation of the town was $988,513, and she could boast of no rich men, scarcely any one paying a tax of a hundred dollars.

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

The town had no public hall other than the little school-house on Medford Street. Tliere was no cliurch, place of worship, or organized society, no stores, no minister, lawyer, or physician within her limits. Protection from fires was aff'orded by one small tub-engine.

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 Somerville City - it names this place 9 more 9 times.

Fires near this place

86 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 86 fires within 5 miles of West Somerville between 2015 and 2020, burning about 113 acres in total. None started naturally. 30 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
Arson/incendiarism30
Missing data/not specified/undetermined21
Recreation and ceremony14
Debris and open burning12
Smoking6
Misuse of fire by a minor2
Equipment and vehicle use1

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 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
3 September 2018Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
23 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
22 September 2019Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Controlnot named
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 1,835 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,835 specimens collected within 10 miles of West Somerville between 1898 and 1975: 808 Animalia, 562 Plantae, 398 Fungi, 29 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 12 Chromista, 9 Unrecorded. 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.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Trientalis borealis Raf.Trientalis borealis Raf.1900A. P. Chute
Aglaospora profusa (Fr.) De Not.1898Collector unspecified
A photograph of the species Bulbostylis capillaris, not of this specimenBulbostylis capillaris var. crebra Fernald1898C. H. KnowltonBoston.
A photograph of the species Cantharellus cinnabarinus, not of this specimenCantharellus cinnabarinus (Schwein.) Schwein.1898not recordedNewton.
A photograph of the species Cantharellus infundibuliformis, not of this specimenCantharellus infundibuliformis (Scop.) Fr.1898not recordedMelrose.
A photograph of the species Cladonia coccifera, not of this specimenCladonia coccifera (L.) Willd.1898Francis P DanielsCambridge
A photograph of the species Cladonia rangiferina, not of this specimenCladonia rangiferina (L.) Weber1898Francis P DanielsArlington Heights
A photograph of the species Cordyceps capitata, not of this specimenCordyceps capitata (Holmsk.) Link1898Conant, [?] F.Middlesex Fells
A photograph of the species Crataegus coccinea, not of this specimenCrataegus coccinea L.1898NoneHarvard University Arboretum
A photograph of the species Ctenidium malacodes, not of this specimenCtenidium malacodes Mitt.1898not recorded
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.

All 1,835 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 14 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 14 workings within 5 miles of West Somerville: 10 plants, 4 past producers. 10 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Lead, 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
(Facility) Vulcan Smelter--Chelsea, Ma.Copper, LeadPlant
C. J. MabardySand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Mahoney:S Rocky LedgePeatPast ProducerPeat
Nrc Inc--Newton, Ma.Tantalum, Niobium (Columbium)Plant
Rocky Ledge PitClayPast Producer
Syncor Prdts Co--Malden, Ma.SilicaPlant
Us Gypsum Co--BostonGypsum-AnhydritePast Producer
Whittemore Prdts Inc--BostonPerlitePlant
(Facility) Cambridge Smelter CoLeadPlant
General Metals & Smelting--BostonLeadPlant

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
North Cambridge0.4 miles46
Avon Hill0.6 miles46
Spring Hill0.9 miles46
Medford Hillside1.2 miles46
Winter Hill1.3 miles46
Old Cambridge1.3 miles46
Huron Village1.3 miles46
Somerville1.4 miles46

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.

Wikidata item Q122569180The 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 612847. 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.