GLOVER – Glover Day will be held July 26 with a run, walk or ride bike to sponsor the Shadow Lake Dam Repairs. The events include the Tour de Glover Bike Race, 5.5 Mile Run, 5K Race, 2K Kid’s Race, Foot Race and the Duck Race.
Glover Day has been an annual tradition, and people come to the town to enjoy traditional celebrations including the foot race commemorating the town’s claim to fame: Runaway Pond. Bread and Puppet will perform the famous puppet show “Runaway Pond” and welcome runners as they enter the Glover Green.
There will be a food truck, petting zoo, kids’ games, face painting, live local music including the Dixieland Jazz Band, and a Hill Farmstead Brewery beer tent. The duck race is sponsored by eighth-grade students supporting their class trip and takes place at the river. The Glover Church will have their annual auction, and the fire department will host a chicken barbecue lunch.
Many people know the story of how 1810 had been a dry summer, and the spring that followed was no different. The river that powered the one grist mill in Glover’s valley was flowing slowly. The miller Aaron Willson hatched an idea that would solve the problem, and enlisted the help of several of his patrons, all early settlers from the hills of Glover, Wheelock and Sheffield, to lend a hand.
On June 6, 1810 about 60 men and boys with picks, shovels and lunches followed the calls of tin horns to the northern end of Long Pond, a body of water on the Glover-Greensboro line. The lake was about 1 mile long, half a mile wide, over 125 feet deep in the deepest part, and surrounded by thickly forested land. Most of the work crew headed there had never been to the pond before.
What they didn’t know was that most of the bank was quicksand, and soon after breaking through the bank, and the thin layer of soil that held the water in, the bank gave way emptying the entire lake into the valley. A man by the name of Spencer Chamberlain took off running to warn the miller’s wife of the coming water. His race against the water saved lives that day. The Glover Day foot race follows that historic journey, traveling north on Rte.16, back to Glover Green.
The annual “Tour de Glover” Bike Ride consists of a 12.6 mile trek across a wide variety of terrain: dirt roads, Class 4 roads, two climbs, and three downhill descents.
Runners and walkers, line up for one of the other races offered. There is a 5K Race (line up at town shed) and a 5.5 mile Run-Chamberlain-Run walk-run option (starting at the Landmark). For children 12 and under there is a 2K Race (starting at Still Hill Bridge). Races Start at 9 a.m. sharp. Kids 2K race starts at 10 a.m.
For more on the races, times and registration visit gloverambulance.org/gloverday or sign up on the day of the races starting at 7 a.m. to 8:15 a.m.
