I don’t usually pay attention to Bennington Triangle stories for the simple reason that I’ve heard them all.

But the other day this True Crime Recaps video entitled Bennington Triangle Mysteries: Proof of the Paranormal? dropped and I was pleasantly surprised that it did contain a new story (new to me, at least) so I thought I would share it here.

Note: In researching this I discovered an account (new to me, at least) that claims James Tedford’s wife had mysteriously vanished some years before (summarized below).

Background – What is the Bennington Triangle?

The Bennington Triangle is an area in the US state of Vermont in which several people disappeared between 1945 and 1950. Wikipedia says it was given this name in a 1992 radio broadcast by New England author Joseph A. Citro.

This area is roughly centered on Glastenbury Mountain and includes the towns surrounding it, namely Bennington, Woodford, Shaftsbury, and Somerset. Much of the area is densely forested low mountains.

Following is a summary of those disappearances (to which I’ve added a bit about James Tedford’s wife).

Middie Rivers was a 74 year old man who disappeared on November 12, 1945 while serving as a guide to a group of four hunters (he was very familiar with the area). While returning to camp, he suddenly sped up and moved ahead of the group. The hunters assumed he intended to make it to camp first in order to have a fire burning when they arrived. But he wasn’t there. He was never seen again.

This disappearance happened in the Long Trail Road area and Vermont Route 9.

Paula Jean Welden was an 18 year old sophomore at Bennington College who disappeared on December 1, 1946 while hiking on the Long Trail. Many people saw her, including an elderly couple who were about 100 yard behind her. They were apparently the last people to see her. Wikipedia says she wasn’t wearing a jacket, but some other sources say she was wearing a red parka.

James Tedford was a 68 year old veteran who disappeared on December 1, 1949. He was a resident of the Bennington Soldiers’ Home. This is probably the strangest disappearance associated with the Bennington Triangle as Mr. Tedford appears to have disappeared while on a bus traveling from St. Albans to Bennington. Witnesses said that Tedford had boarded the bus and had been on the bus after its last stop before Bennington. He appears to have just vanished from the bus, leaving his belongings behind.

Today I learned that James Tedford had had a wife named Pearl who had disappeared some years before. The narrative I have found regarding Pearl says that she was much younger than James (she was 28 to his 56) and they lived together in Fletcher Town, in Franklin, Vermont.

The narrative seems to diverge after this. In one form, James returns home after serving in World War II to find the home they had rented abandoned, his wife missing, and his family claiming no knowledge of her whereabouts.

In the second form, James and Pearl are living together after the war as normal, but he comes home one day to find her missing. There is even a meal that is either in the process of being prepared or has already been served and waiting for him (in some versions the meal is still hot).

In both forms of Pearl’s narrative, she had last been seen at or near an Amoco store in Franklin.

I can’t find any information from a reputable source verifying the Pearl Tedford story. I did find a newspaper story about James Tedford that mentions a Miss Pearl Tedford but is unclear how she is related to him (links here and here).

Paul Jepson was an eight year old boy who disappeared on October 12, 1950. Jepson’s mother had left her son unattended in their truck for about an hour. When she returned, Jespon was gone. He was wearing a bright red jacket, but was never seen again.

Some versions of the story have bloodhounds tracking him to a crossroads where Paula Welden is said to have disappeared (she may also have been wearing red).

Frieda Langer was a 53 year old woman who disappeared on October 28, 1950. She had been camping with her cousin Herbert Elsner. While hiking together, she fell into a stream and told Elsner she was going back to camp to change and would return to him. She never did. Elsner returned to the campsite to find no one had seen her return.

Over the next two weeks, 300 searchers as well as an air search failed to find her.

Her body was found on May 12, 1951 about three and a half miles from their camp. According to this article her body was found “just above the Flood Dam in Somerset” – so I assume she was found in the water.

Her cause of death could not be determined.

The part of the narrative that adds mystery to this disappearance is that the location she was found had been searched, but Wikipedia says “had been only lightly searched seven months previously.” Also, she was likely under the water for that time.

Robert Singley’s Story

The October 3, 2008 edition of the Bennington Banner newspaper contains a story entitled Lost In Glastenbury (linked here and here).

The article is an interview of one Robert Singley, a 27 year old man who claims to have become lost in a very bizarre fashion in the Bennington Triangle.

The article begins by describing how Singley went out for a day hike in “the exact same place where Paula Weldon … was last seen some 62 years ago.”

While walking back to his car, he realized that he had gone four or five miles – but his car had been parked only three miles away. A fog rolled in and it started getting dark.

Singley pulled his headlamp from his pack but it was broken.

He didn’t have a watch, or map, or compass, or GPS.

Singley describes how, unable to locate the correct trail, he took refuge under a large maple. He said of this tree,

I was kind of like drawn to it in the night. It was really expelling a weird sort of – I don’t know – a really weird haunting energy – whatever that means.

It was dark. He was cold. He tried to build a fire, but kept stumbling across large animal bones in his search for wood. He was eventually able to build a fire out of some dried birch he had found, and some pages from a book he had in his pack.

Aside from a loon call, he said that the night had been eerily quiet.

The sun eventually rose, and disoriented, he tried to find his way back to his car. After hiking three or four miles, he found a wilderness sign that told him where he was: near Goddard Shelter, almost at the peak of Glastenbury Mountain.

I thought I was camped about a quarter-mile from my car, and, instead I woke up totally on the other side of this ridge, literally six or seven miles away from where I thought I was.

On his way back, Singley passed the maple, but the trail seemed “completely foreign.” He saw things that he couldn’t have missed the night before – like downed trees crossing the trail.

Police found him late that morning.

Singley finishes,

Either I took a side trail, which doesn’t really make sense, or something really weird happened.

Questions

  1. The article says that Robert Singley was an experienced hiker – so what the heck happened to him?

  2. What’s up with the story about James Tedford’s wife Pearl? What really happened? Is there any reputable info on it?

  3. What’s your thoughts on the Bennington Triangle?

Links

Lost In Glastenbury, October 3rd, 2008 edition of the Bennington Banner, Bennington, Vermont

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104849254/lost-in-glastenbury-bennington/

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104849333/lost-in-glastenbury-bennington/

Robert Singley chapter of Bennington Triangle Mysteries: Proof of the Paranormal? youtube video:

https://youtu.be/QWfam7bXuZQ?t=424

Bennington Triangle Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennington_Triangle

Bennington Triangle Case #3: The Disappearance of James Tedford, and His Wife, Pearl youtube video:

https://youtu.be/HQhpJepXKKw

5 Strangest UNSOLVED MYSTERIES From The Bennington Triangle youtube video:

https://youtu.be/v8WTfDEWsic

Search for Bennington Man Continues, December 15th 1949 edition of the St. Albans Daily Messenger, St. Albans, Vermont

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104885172/search-for-bennington-man-continues-1/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104885246/search-for-bennington-man-continues-2/

Mystery Solved, December 31st 1951 edition of The Brattleboro Reformer, Brattleboro, Vermont

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/104890546/frieda-langer-body-found/