The term "Bennington Triangle" was created by American author Joseph A. Citro to describe an area in southwestern Vermont where several people disappeared between 1945 and 1950. This idea became more widely known through two books, including Shadow Child, where Citro wrote about these disappearances and local stories connected to the region. Citro compared the Bennington Triangle to the Bridgewater Triangle in southeastern Massachusetts. He also noted that Glastenbury and nearby areas had long been linked to tales of unusual events, such as the disappearance of Paula Jean Welden.
The exact boundaries of the Bennington Triangle are not clearly defined, but it is believed to be centered around Glastenbury Mountain. It likely includes parts of the towns near it, such as Bennington, Woodford, Shaftsbury, and Somerset. Glastenbury and Somerset were once busy towns involved in logging and industry, but they declined by the late 1800s. These towns are now considered ghost towns and were made unincorporated by a law passed by the Vermont General Assembly in 1937. In 2008, Robert Singley, a 27-year-old student at Bennington College, became lost in the area but was later found safe by Vermont State Police.
Reported disappearances
The first disappearance happened on November 12, 1945, when 74-year-old Middie Rivers went missing while hunting in Bickford Hollow, about four miles west of Bennington and north of Vermont Route 9 near Woodford. Rivers was an experienced outdoorsman who often visited his son-in-law’s hunting camp on the Long Trail. Friends said he knew the area well. On November 9, 1945, a friend saw Rivers walking on a nearby trail in the opposite direction of the camp. When Rivers did not return that evening, a search group was formed. Many searches took place that autumn, including help from Fort Devens and the Vermont State Guard. A search leader expected to find Rivers’ remains, noting that many people had been lost in the area over the years but had always been found. However, the only clue discovered was Rivers’ handkerchief, found by a hiker the following spring along a trail south of where he was last seen.
Paula Jean Welden, 18, was last seen on December 1, 1946, about two miles south of the area where Rivers disappeared the previous year. Welden, a sophomore at Bennington College, left campus early in the afternoon and walked and hitchhiked six miles to the Long Trail, which, at that time, crossed Route 9 near Harbour Road. A local man gave her a ride from the college to a site on Route 9 about two miles west of the Long Trail. Other witnesses said they saw her on or near the trail, including a Bennington Banner employee who gave her directions. She wore a red jacket, jeans, and lightweight sneakers but did not carry camping gear or clothing for cold weather. Welden did not attend class the next morning, and a large search was launched, including a $5,000 reward and help from the FBI. No evidence of her was ever found. Welden’s disappearance inspired the 1951 novel Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson.
James Tedford, a 68-year-old World War I veteran, disappeared on December 1, 1949, exactly three years after Welden was last seen. Tedford, a resident of the Vermont Soldiers’ Home in Bennington, had been visiting relatives in St. Albans. Relatives saw him board a southbound bus at the local station. His last confirmed sighting was at the bus depot in Burlington, where he briefly spoke with an acquaintance before transferring to a Bennington-bound bus around 6:15 PM. The bus driver later told police that a man resembling Tedford may have gotten off the bus in the village of Brandon, about 70 miles north of Bennington. That same night, Brandon police looked into a report of a man matching Tedford’s description acting strangely in the village. Tedford’s disappearance was not reported for a week until the Bennington Soldiers’ Home superintendent notified police on December 8. Newspapers said Tedford had mental health issues at the time of his disappearance, and his family said he was “despondent” about returning to Bennington. Author Tony Jinks wrote that while many believe Tedford disappeared suddenly on the bus, there is evidence he was not simply “gone” despite no trace being found.
On October 12, 1950, Paul “Buddy” Jepson, an 8-year-old with special needs, disappeared while helping his mother with farm chores. Around 3 PM, his mother drove him to the Bennington town dump, where the family kept pigs. She left him alone in the car for about 30 minutes while she worked with the animals. When she returned around 4 PM, he was gone. Authorities first searched the dump and nearby woods, but a bloodhound tracked Jepson’s scent along a road to an intersection where the trail ended. Police thought rain might have washed away the scent, while his father suggested a driver might have accidentally hit the boy and taken him away in fear. He also said searchers might have missed Paul in the woods because his brown and tan clothes blended with fall leaves.
On October 28, 1950, sixteen days after Jepson vanished, 53-year-old Frieda Langer disappeared while hiking near Somerset. A skilled hiker and hunter, Langer had joined her husband, Max, and cousin, Herbert Elsner, that morning from their home in North Adams to their family cabin near Somerset Reservoir. While hiking with Elsner around 1 PM, Langer slipped and fell into a stream, soaking her clothes. She told Elsner she would take a shortcut back to the cabin to change and would catch up later. When she did not return, a search began, including planes, helicopters, and up to 300 people. Langer had a seizure disorder, and her husband thought cold weather might have caused a seizure, making her lost in the woods. On May 12, 1951, fishermen found Langer’s body three and a half miles southeast of the campsite on the shore of the Deerfield River’s eastern branch. The body had been in an area only lightly searched before. No cause of death could be determined due to the condition of her remains, but an investigator thought she may have fallen into a deep pond after slipping down an embankment and later been washed out by a spring freshet.
In popular culture
In 1950, during the search for Jepson, reporters in the Bennington area noticed three earlier similar cases and thought there might be links between them. In November 1950, the Bennington Evening Banner wrote an article suggesting the region might hide a “Lost Horizon,” a term from James Hilton’s well-known 1933 book, which describes a group of people who become lost in a magical mountain region of Tibet. The events from 1945 to 1950 are covered in episode 67 of the show Lore, titled "The Red Coats." The case was also included as a haunted place in the paranormal TV series Most Terrifying Places in America, which aired on the Travel Channel in 2018. The episode, titled "Unnatural World," shared stories about reported missing persons over five years and local legends about the "Bennington Monster," a creature resembling Bigfoot that is said to live in the forested areas.