Massachusetts Historical Landcover and Census Data

• Investigators: John Burk, David Foster, Brian Hall, Glenn Motzkin, Mindy Syfert
• Contact: Brian Hall
• Start date: 1640-01-01
• End date: 1999-12-31
• Location: Massachusetts
• Latitude: +41.3 to +42.9
• Longitude: -73.5 to -69.9
• Elevation:
• Taxa:
• Keywords: GIS, history, land use, landscape patterns
• Abstract:

  An appreciation of historical landuse and its effects are crucial when interpreting the structure, composition, and spatial characteristics of modern forests. The Harvard Forest has compiled many different historical data sources in an ongoing effort to understand how anthropogenic disturbances have shaped our modern landscapes.

• Methods:

  Historical land use and landcover

  Estimates of town land use and land cover were gathered from a variety of sources, including tax valuations (1801-1860) and state agricultural census records (1865-1905). Data prior to 1801 rarely cover the entire state and are excluded from these datasets.

  Historical forest structure

  Data on forest structure are available for several time periods, including 1885 and 1895 (Agricultural Censuses) and 1916 – 1920s (State Forester’s reports).

  Forest distribution in the agricultural period

  In 1830 the state of Massachusetts mandated that each town produce a town plan at the scale of 100 rods/inch (1:19,200). Most of these maps indicate roads, prominent buildings and businesses, meadows, and woodlands. Copies were made of the original maps housed at the Massachusetts State Archives and were geo-referenced to USGS topographic quads using a zoom-transfer scope before digitizing in ArcView GIS (c). This data set will be made available on a case-by-case basis, although it is available on this website as a JPG image.

• Related datasets: HF087 HF088