Glover, Vermont, USA (West Glover)
1849 - Glover

Orleans Co. This town is hilly, and the soil is more fit for grazing than tillage. There are in the town branches of Barton's, Passumpsic, Lamoille, and Black Rivers, and several ponds. On these streams are some manufactures.

We copy an account of the running off of Long Pond, from Thompson's valuable Gazetteer of Vermont :

" Long Pond was situated partly in this township, and partly in Greensborough. This pond was one and a half miles long and about half a mile wide, and di charged its waters to the south, forming one of the head branches of the River Lamoille. On the 6th of June. 1810, about sixty persons went to this pond, for the purpose of opening an outlet to the north into Barton River, that the mills on that stream might receive an occasional supply of water. A small channel was excavated, and the water commenced running in a northerly direction. It happened that the northern barrier of the pond consisted entirely of quicksand, except an encrusting of clay next the water. The sand was immediately removed by the current, and a large channel formed. The basin formed by the encrusting of the clay was incapable of sustaining the incumbent mass of waters, and it brake. The whole pond immediately took a northerly course, and, in fifteen minutes from this time, its bed was left entirely bare. It was discharged so suddenly, that the country below was instantly inundated. The deluge advanced like a wall of waters, sixty or seventy feet in height and twenty rods in width, levelling the forests and the hills, and filling up the valleys, and sweeping off mills, houses, barns, fences, cattle, horses, and sheep, as it passed, for the distance of more than ten miles, and barely giving the inhabitants sufficient notice of its approach, to escape with their lives into the mountains. A rock, supposed to weigh more than 100 tons, was removed half a mile from its bed. The waters removed so rapidly as to reach Memphremagog Lake, distance twenty-seven miles, in about six hours from the time they left the pond. Nothing now remains of the pond but its bed, a part of which is cultivated and a part overgrown with bushes and wild grass, with a small brook running through it, which is now the head branch of Barton River. The channel through which the waters escaped is 1 27 feet in depth and several rods in width. A pond, some distance below, was at first entirely filled with sand, which has since settled down, and it is now about one half its former dimensions. Marks of the ravages are still to be seen through nearly the whole course of Barton River."

Boundaries. North by Barton, east by Sheffield, south by Greensborough, and west by Albany.

First Settlers. The settlement of this township was commenced about the year 1797, by Ralph Parker, James Vance, Samuel Cook, and Samuel Conant.

Productions of the Soil. Wheat, 3,129 bushels; Indian corn, 1,947 bushels; potatoes, 54,708 bushels; hay, 3,448 tons ; maple sugar, 61,430 pounds ; wool, 15,718 tons.

Distances. Ten miles south-east from Irasburgh, and thirty-eight northeast from Montpelier.

A gazetteer of Vermont... by John Hayward Boston - Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason 1849

Visit Glover, Vermont, USA (West Glover)
Discover the people who lived there, the places they visited and the stories they shared.