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

Westport Point, Massachusetts

37 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1888 and the latest in 1985. It stands in Westport town. It lies in ZIP code area 02791. It stands on Jug Rock. The Survey maps it on the Head of Westport quadrangle.

Westport Point within Bristol County

Then and now

1888 to 1985

The same ground, surveyed 97 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Westport Point, surveyed 1985

Topographic sheet of Westport Point, surveyed 1888

Topographic sheets covering this place

37 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

119,038 words on this township

History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883 names this settlement in its chapter on Westport Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

As early as 1762, the militia of old or original Dartmouth had become so numerous as to be divided into five companies, one of which doubtless embraced the train band and alarm list of what is now Westport. The commissioned officers of these companies at that date were as follows :

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

Nineteen years later the militia of ancient Dartmouth had been increased to nine companies, and that part of these forces in what subsequently became Westport appeared under these officers, viz. : Robert Earl, captain ; Sylvester Brownell, lieutenant; and John Hix, ensign.

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

Barber, in his " Historical Collections," published in 1848, in speaking of Westport, says, "This town, previous to its incorporation in 1787, was a part of Dartmouth. There are two small villages in the town, one at the head of East River, the other at Westport Point. The people are much divided in religious sentiments. There are five meeting-houses : two for Friends, two for Baptists, and one for Methodists. There is also a small society of Congregational ists. The village at the head of East or Nochacuck River is about eight* miles from New Bedford, eight from Franklin, and twenty-one from Newport. Formerly considerable quantities of timber were obtained in this town. The whale fishery is now an important branch of business ; eight whaling vessels now go out from Westport Point. There is a cottonmill in this town having 3072 spindles, which in 1837 consumed 300,000 pounds of cotton ; 270,000 pounds of cotton yarn were manufactured, the value of which was $67,500."

Passage source: History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, published 1883.

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 Westport Town - it names this place 10 more 10 times.

Fires near this place

23 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 23 fires within 5 miles of Westport Point between 2008 and 2020, burning about 16 acres in total. None started naturally. 5 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/undetermined	12
Arson/incendiarism	5
Debris and open burning	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1

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
15 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 August 2018	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
21 June 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
1 June 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
7 May 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.2 acres	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 May 2017	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
19 May 2020	Debris and open burning	1.5 acres	Rhode Island Division of Forest Environment	not named
11 May 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Bristol County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,689 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,689 specimens collected within 10 miles of Westport Point between 1846 and 1975: 781 Animalia, 670 Plantae, 138 Chromista, 90 Fungi, 8 Bacteria, 2 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by 99121, A. B. Gridley, A. Clark 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	Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
	Bangia fuscopurpurea (Dillwyn) Lyngbye	1846	Illegible	Sauconnet Point, RI
	Ptilota elegans Bonnemaison	1846	none seen	Sauconnet Point, Little Compton, RI
	Ahnfeltia plicata (Huds.) Fr.	1851	G. W. Fahnstock	Seaconnet
	Ceramium rubrum C.Agardh	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet
	Ceramium strictum (Kütz.) Rabenh., 1847	1854	Mary E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
	Champia parvula (C.Agardh) Harv.	1854	Mary E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
	Chondria baileyana Montagne	1854	M. E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet, RI
	Chordaria flagelliformis (O.F.Müll.) C.Agardh	1854	M. E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
$A photograph of the species Cladophora refracta, not of this specimen$	Cladophora refracta (Roth) Kütz.	1854	Mary E. Fahuestock	Seaconnet
	Cystoclonium purpurascens (Hudson) Kützing	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet
	Dasya elegans (G.Martens) C.Agardh	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet
	Ectocarpus confervoides Le Jol.	1854	M. E. Fahnestock	Seaconnet

All 1,689 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Westport Point: 1 past producer. None of them 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	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Boan Farm Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Bristol 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
Acoaxet	1.6 miles	37
Handy Four Corners	3.4 miles	37
South Westport	3.5 miles	37
Central Village	3.7 miles	37
Macombers Corner	3.7 miles	37
Slocums Corner	3.8 miles	37
Slades Corner	3.9 miles	37
Snell Corner	4.4 miles	37

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 Q122539811

The 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 613280. 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.