Runaway Pond Fishing in Orleans County, Vermont
Crystal Lake Area

The last good day of fishing on Runaway Pond was June 6, 1810. On that day, 40 to 100 men and boys walked through the woods to Long Pond (as it was then known) to do a little fishing and to dig a small ditch to connect Long Pond to its nearby northern neighbor Mud Pond. The plan was to increase the flow out of Mud Pond via the Barton River so Aaron Willson's grist and sawmills 5 miles north in Glover could continue to operate in a dry summer. The north end of Long Pond was a natural dam composed mainly of fine sand with a thin shell of cemented gravel on top. As the water began to flow in the ditch, it gulled out the sand and the dam broke away in larger and larger pieces. Soon the whole lake, an estimated 2 billion gallons of water, was flooding down the Barton River valley carrying everything before it. Since that day Long Pond has been called Runaway or Dry Pond and has only a narrow stream of water running through it. The bicentennial of the "letting out" will be celebrated June 4, 5 & 6, 2010 in Glover. For more information, visit runawayponders.blogspot.com