Paula Jean Welden was a Bennington College

Bennington College

Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...

, Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

, USA, sophomore

Sophomore

Sophomore is a term used in the United States to describe a student in the second year of study at high school or university.The word is also used as a synonym for "second", for the second album or EP released by a musician or group, the second movie of a director, or the second season of a...

 whose disappearance while walking on Vermont's Long Trail

Long Trail

The Long Trail is a hiking trail located in Vermont, running the length of the state. It is the oldest long-distance trail in the United States, constructed between 1910 and 1930 by the Green Mountain Club...

 hiking route remains an unsolved mystery.

Background

Paula Welden was the eldest of four daughters of the well-known industrial engineer, architect and designer William Archibald Welden (1900–1970) and his wife Jean Douglas (b at Mount Kisco, NY, 1901–d. at Venice, Florida, 1976), née Wilson, of Brookdale Road, Stamford, Connecticut. Employed by the Revere Copper and Brass Company, W. Archibald Welden was the designer of many familiar household utensils, as well as stylish cocktail shakers and other objects. Paula was a 1945 graduate of Stamford High School.

Bennington College

In 1946, Welden was a sophomore at Bennington College

Bennington College

Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...

 in North Bennington, Vermont.
Her college dormitory was Dewey House, one of the older dormitories on the college grounds, and which remains to this day.
She was an art major but, dissatisfied with the faculty and her progress, was contemplating changing her major; she had discovered a newfound love of botany. Welden was a typical student who was sorting out her own interests from those of her parents and was trying to expand her circle of friends. She and her roommate were quite close and both realized how dependent they were on one another for a social life. Paula started to befriend other students and became involved in square dancing and hiking with groups of friends from Bennington College

Bennington College

Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...

 and Williams College

Williams College

Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...

 in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Welden worked part time at the dining hall in The Commons on campus and worked the lunch shift on Sunday December 1. She decided to find and walk a portion of the Long Trail, a few miles from the campus. Paula knew of the famous trail but hadn’t yet had an opportunity to hike it. She tried to get some other students to join her that day but they were busy. Paula went by herself.

The Long Trail

After finishing her shift in the dining hall, Welden returned to her room and changed into walking clothes. Her clothing was adequate for the weather that afternoon but not for the anticipated drop in temperature that night. She packed no bag, brought no extra clothing, and didn’t take any extra money. From all appearances, she didn’t expect to be gone more than a few hours. Welden walked down the campus driveway and hitched a ride from State Route 67A near the college entrance in North Bennington

Bennington

-People:* Chester Bennington, lead singer of rock bands Linkin Park and Dead by Sunrise* Geoffrey Bennington, Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature at Emory University* Ron Bennington, co-host of the Ron and Fez radio show...

 to a point on State Route 9 near the Furnace Bridge between downtown Bennington

Bennington

-People:* Chester Bennington, lead singer of rock bands Linkin Park and Dead by Sunrise* Geoffrey Bennington, Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature at Emory University* Ron Bennington, co-host of the Ron and Fez radio show...

 and Woodford Hollow. Local contractor Louis Knapp picked her up and drove her as far as his house on Route 9, about 2.5 miles from the Long Trail. From this point, Welden either hitchhiked or walked the rest of the way to the start of the Long Trail

Long Trail

The Long Trail is a hiking trail located in Vermont, running the length of the state. It is the oldest long-distance trail in the United States, constructed between 1910 and 1930 by the Green Mountain Club...

 in Woodford Hollow.

A group of hikers were walking down the trail as Welden was walking up. She approached them and asked them a few questions about the Long Trail

Long Trail

The Long Trail is a hiking trail located in Vermont, running the length of the state. It is the oldest long-distance trail in the United States, constructed between 1910 and 1930 by the Green Mountain Club...

. She continued walking in a northerly direction on the road portion of the trail now known as Harbour Road. Welden was on the Long Trail late in the afternoon and darkness was falling as she approached the end of Harbour Road. She may have continued into quickly darkening woods and it was presumed that she must have continued her Long Trail walk along the Bolles Brook Valley, although there are no known confirmed sightings of her past the Fay Fuller Camp.

The search

Welden didn’t return to campus. Her roommate thought she must have gone to the library to study for exams but the next morning, Welden still hadn’t returned. Once the college administrators were notified, they immediately started a search of the campus itself. The Bennington County State’s Attorney was notified and the county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

 sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 was brought in to help with the search. Over the next couple of days, her visit to the Long Trail was discovered when one of the hikers she had approached identified her from the photo in the Bennington Banner newspaper, where he worked.

Weeks of searching ensued. The college closed for several days and the students and faculty participated in organized searches. Hundreds of volunteers, family members, National Guard troops, students, firefighters, etc. searched for her to no avail. Ground and air searches concentrated on the Long Trail up as far as Glastenbury Mountain

Glastenbury Mountain

Glastenbury Mountain is a mountain located in Bennington County, Vermont, in the Green Mountain National Forest.The mountain is part of the Green Mountains....

 (ten miles to the north), the trail’s various branches, and along Vermont Route 9 from Bennington

Bennington

-People:* Chester Bennington, lead singer of rock bands Linkin Park and Dead by Sunrise* Geoffrey Bennington, Professor of French and Professor of Comparative Literature at Emory University* Ron Bennington, co-host of the Ron and Fez radio show...

 to Brattleboro. Most of the searching assumed Paula had gotten lost in the woods. When no clues were found as to her whereabouts, other theories started to be considered.

Connecticut State Police investigation

Alternative theories speculated that Paula was depressed and may have committed suicide, that she had been in unusually high spirits and had decided to run away to start a new life, was going to meet a secret lover and went off with him, or had become injured and suffered from amnesia. Darker theories speculated that she might have been kidnapped or murdered.

At the time of Paula’s disappearance there was no state police organization in Vermont and the state’s attorney, county sheriff and state investigator Almo Franzoni were responsible for the investigation. Paula’s father pressed the investigators and the governor to bring in additional professional law enforcement help. Vermont’s governor asked Connecticut’s governor to lend assistance. Connecticut State Police

Connecticut State Police

The Connecticut State Police is a division of the Connecticut Department of Public Safety responsible for traffic regulation and law enforcement across the state of Connecticut, especially in areas not served by local police departments. The CSP currently has approximately 1,248 troopers, and is...

 detective Robert Rundle and state policewoman Dorothy Scoville were assigned to the case. They interviewed every person who saw, or thought they saw Paula, who lived along the route she took, or who were simply in the vicinity of the Long Trail on that December afternoon.

The Connecticut State Police

Connecticut State Police

The Connecticut State Police is a division of the Connecticut Department of Public Safety responsible for traffic regulation and law enforcement across the state of Connecticut, especially in areas not served by local police departments. The CSP currently has approximately 1,248 troopers, and is...

 investigation has been ignored by most authors who have written about Paula’s disappearance. Investigators discovered that one of the last people to see Paula alive was a man who lived along Harbour Road. He was in the midst of an argument with his girlfriend when she walked by. The man stormed off in a jealous rage shortly thereafter and depending on different statements he made, he went to his shack and spent the evening by himself, or he drove his truck up the travel portion of the trail (where Paula was heading). He lied to police on several occasions and was a person of interest in 1946 and again in 1952 when the case was revisited. Reportedly, he told at least two people that he knew within a hundred feet where Paula was buried but later claimed it was just idle talk. When no evidence was found that a crime had actually been committed, no body was ever discovered, and no forensic clues were identified, this avenue of the investigation ended.

Aftermath

The manner in which Paula’s disappearance was handled was sharply criticized by Paula’s father and many others. He pointed out that the lack of a statewide law enforcement organization and the lack of training of local sheriffs contributed to a poorly run investigation. Within seven months of Paula’s disappearance, the Vermont legislature created the Vermont State Police.

Other cases

In the same general area where Welden disappeared, at least another four unexplained vanishings were reported to have taken place between 1945 and 1950. Due to the strangeness of these events, Vermont broadcaster and author Joseph A. Citro

Joseph A. Citro

Joseph A. Citro is a Vermont author and folklorist. Occasionally referred as the "Bard of the Bizarre" or "the Ghost-Master General", he has extensively researched and documented the folklore, hauntings, ghost stories, paranormal activity and occult happenings of New England.Interested in horror...

 dubbed the wilderness area northeast of Bennington "the Bennington Triangle

Bennington Triangle

"Bennington Triangle" is a phrase coined by New England author Joseph A. Citro during a public radio broadcast in 1992 to denote an area of southwestern Vermont within which a number of persons went missing between 1920 and 1950...

" – a reference to unexplained disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle

Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and surface vessels allegedly disappeared under mysterious circumstances....

.

In literature

Author Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...

 (1916–1965) was inspired by Welden's vanishing when she wrote her novel Hangsaman (1951), as indicated by Jackson's papers in the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

. At the time of Welden's disappearance in 1946, Shirley Jackson was living in North Bennington, Vermont, where her husband was employed at Bennington College. Jackson's short story. "The Missing Girl," included in Just An Ordinary Day (the 1996 collection of her previously unpublished/uncollected short stories), also references the Welden case.