EDDINGTON – Firetrucks will lead the funeral procession for Arnold Grover, a 31-year veteran town firefighter and former chief, who died early Wednesday morning after a long illness. Grover was 70.

“He was very active in this town for many, many years,” Town Manager Russell Smith said Thursday. “He was very influential in getting the fire department started out here and getting the building built here.”

Local fire chiefs also are expected to attend the funeral service.

Born in Bangor on May 14, 1935, Grover moved shortly afterwards with his parents to Eddington, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was 8 years old when his family moved to the Grover homestead on Route 9, owned by his grandfather.

Grover worked for 27 years for Bean and Conquest in Bangor and for the Nynex phone company for another 13 years, but he was best known around town as a firefighter.

Thanks to Grover’s assistance and leadership, the municipal fire department building was constructed in 1974. He served as chief on more than one occasion during his 31-year tenure with the Eddington Volunteer Fire Department and retired as chief in 2005.

“When they first started, all [Eddington firefighters] had were the Indian tanks on their backs,” Tracey Grover of Gorham, Grover’s daughter, said Thursday. “He always worked and did the firefighting on top of everything else.”

As a testament to his dedication to firefighting, he was nominated by his peers as the state’s Fire Chief of the Year in 1990, Smith said.

“He was well-known throughout the state,” Smith said.

Grover also served as a selectman for seven years, beginning in 1968. He spent the last few years of his life working the family homestead, now called Sugarbush Farm, and raising horses.

The funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at Eddington Community Church, where Grover was a member and served as a deacon trustee.