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

Wethersfield, Massachusetts

44 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Bellingham town. It lies in ZIP code area 02019. It stands on Beaver Brook. The Survey maps it on the Franklin quadrangle.

Wethersfield within Norfolk County

Then and now

1887 to 1989

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 Wethersfield, surveyed 1989
Topographic sheet of Wethersfield, surveyed 1887

Topographic sheets covering this place

44 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.

Fires nearby

94 since 2015

The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 94 fires within 5 miles of Wethersfield between 2015 and 2020, burning about 134 acres in total. None started naturally. 23 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/undetermined29
Arson/incendiarism23
Recreation and ceremony16
Smoking11
Debris and open burning8
Equipment and vehicle use6
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
28 September 2015Recreation and ceremonyunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
27 September 2015Smokingunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
27 September 2015Recreation and ceremony1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
25 September 2015Equipment and vehicle use2.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlBELLINGHAM
17 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN
16 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undetermined1.0 acresMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN
13 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN
13 September 2016Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreMassachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire ControlFRANKLIN

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Norfolk County

Specimens collected nearby

12 of 311 shown

Museums hold 311 specimens collected within 10 miles of Wethersfield between 1843 and 1973: 120 Animalia, 94 Fungi, 90 Plantae, 6 Unrecorded, 1 Bacteria. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A Herz, A. B. Seymour, A. P. D. Piguet 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 Polygala paucifolia, not of this specimenPolygala paucifolia Willd.1843ShoreWoonsocket
A photograph of the species Nitella tenuissima, not of this specimenNitella tenuissima (Desv.) Kütz.1874Piper, S. M.
A photograph of the species Carex vestita, not of this specimenCarex vestita Willd.1875Collector unspecifiedNorfolk.
A photograph of the species Loxia curvirostra, not of this specimenLoxia curvirostra minor (C.L.Brehm, 1846)1877Charles A. HoughtonWest Medway
A photograph of the species Passerina cyanea, not of this specimenPasserina cyanea (Linnaeus, 1766)1877Charles A. HoughtonWest Medway
A photograph of the species Ensis directus, not of this specimenEnsis directus (Conrad, 1844)1881EatonMassachusetts
A photograph of the species Podiceps auritus, not of this specimenPodiceps auritus cornutus (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)1881Daniel DuncanWest Medway
Fungi1882S. Higginson
Roestelia lacerata Mérat1883A. B. Seymour
A photograph of the species Stamnaria americana, not of this specimenStamnaria americana Massee & Morgan1883W. G. Farlow
A photograph of the species Acorus americanus, not of this specimenAcorus americanus (Raf.) Raf.1884Nathaniel T. KidderCharles River, above Medfield
A photograph of the species Gymnosporangium clavariiforme, not of this specimenGymnosporangium clavariiforme (Wulfen) DC.1885A. B. Seymour

All 311 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries nearby

10 of 13 shown

The federal mineral resources record lists 13 workings within 5 miles of Wethersfield: 10 past producers, 2 producers, 1 unknown. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Granite. 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
Castellucci and SonsGranitePast ProducerGranite
Milford Pink Granite QuarryGranitePast Producer
Candlewood Recreation AreaSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Carl A MolinariSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Carl A. Molinari PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Franklin PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionProducer
High Street PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
Highway PitSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast Producer
O A LafleurSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary
Richard C HillSand and Gravel, ConstructionPast ProducerSedimentary

Every working recorded in Norfolk County

Storms nearby

4 since 2008

The National Weather Service names Wethersfield in 4 storm reports between 2008 and 2021: 3 thunderstorm wind, 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
June 2008Thunderstorm WindWethersfield$5,000A tree on Interstate 495 near Bellingham was downed by thunderstorm winds onto the interstate.
November 2021Thunderstorm WindWethersfield$1,000In Bellingham, large branches were down and fencing blown over on Maple Street.
September 2018Thunderstorm WindWethersfield$1,000At 3:33 PM EST, wind brought a tree down on High Street in Bellingham, blocking the road.
April 2010FloodWethersfield-Four to six inches of rain fell across Norfolk County, resulting in the Charles River at Dover and the Neponset River at Norwood rising to major flood.||Several small streams rose above flood stage across Norfolk County, including the Charles River at Medway which set a record, the Monatiquot River at East Braintree, and the Old Swamp River at South Weymouth. ||Many basements were flooded in Norfolk and Westwood. Numerous streets were closed due to flooding in Holbrook, Medfield, Bellingham, Franklin, Westwood, Medway, Norfolk, Walpole, Quincy, Weymouth, and Millis.||In Bellingham, one family was evacuated from a house on Pine Grove Avenue. The Primavera School on Harpin Street also had some flooding.||Damage amounts can be found in the March Storm Data when most of the damage occurred. Rivers and small streams remained in flood into April.

Every storm recorded in Norfolk 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
Forest Park0.5 miles44
Midland0.8 miles44
Charles River Grove0.8 miles44
Happy Hills0.9 miles44
Bellingham1.1 miles44
Valley View1.3 miles44
North Bellingham1.6 miles44
Maple Ridge1.9 miles44

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611746. 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.