Paula Jean Welden Vanished on Vermont’s Long Trail
Paula Jean Welden, the eldest of four daughters born to renowned engineer and architect William Archibald Welden, vanished while hiking on Vermont’s Long Trail. It was December 1st, 1946, when the 18‑year‑old sophomore at Bennington College walked out of her dormitory—Dewey House, which still stands today—and stepped into one of the most enduring mysteries in American history.
Imagine it: she left that door, probably expecting nothing more than a brisk afternoon hike, and simply never returned.
Fakipedia News
Most articles about Paula Welden’s disappearance repeat the same dramatic line:
“She turned a corner and vanished.”
It’s everywhere. It’s catchy. And it’s completely unsupported.
Check the Bennington Triangle page on Wikipedia and you’ll see the same recycled myth. But when you go back to the actual 1946 reporting, the sensational “vanished around a corner” moment simply does not exist.
So what did happen?
Paula Jean Welden Vanished From the Long Trail
Paula Welden vanished—but not in the way the folklore claims. There’s no evidence she evaporated into thin air. No witness ever said she stepped behind a tree and disappeared. That entire narrative is a modern invention.
The real story is stranger—and more human.
On Sunday, December 1st, 1946, around 2:45 PM, local contractor Louis Knapp picked up a young woman matching Paula’s description near Bennington College. She slipped getting into his truck but said nothing. When he asked where she was headed, she asked if he was going toward Route 9. He was. She told him she was going to the Long Trail.
Knapp dropped her off near the trailhead. He went home. He ate his Sunday lunch by 3:15 PM.
He didn’t even realise the girl was missing until December 3rd, when he saw Paula’s photo in the newspaper. Weeks later, Paula’s father confirmed the hood Knapp described matched Paula’s.
Knapp was never considered a suspect.
Sightings of Paula Welden
Here’s where things get interesting.
Possible Bus Sighting — Sunday Night
There were reports of a girl resembling Paula boarding a bus out of Bennington at 8:30 PM. Not confirmed, but it aligns with later sightings.
Fall River, Massachusetts — The Waitress
The next potential sighting came from Ora Telletier, a waitress at the Modern Restaurant in Fall River. The date is unclear—either December 2nd or December 9th—but the details are striking.
At 9:30 PM, Telletier served a girl who looked exactly like Paula. She recognised her from the newspaper and later confirmed the match when shown a photo by the Bennington Evening Banner.
The girl was with a heavyset, drunk, abusive man.
When the man went to pay, the girl quietly asked the waitress:
“Where am I?”
Telletier told her: Fall River.
The girl said she had arrived on Monday—likely December 2nd—with £1000, but now had none left. She needed to get back to Bennington. The waitress told her to go to the bus depot.
This is one of the most compelling leads in the entire case—and it’s almost never mentioned in modern retellings.
Police Issue a Description of a Man
After interviewing the waitress, Fall River police released a description of the man she saw. Around the same time, John Proud, manager of Adams Clothes Store, reported selling clothing to a man matching that description. The man claimed to be a photography student from New Haven.
Paula’s father also mentioned a student living next door who wanted to visit Paula at college—but no name or description was ever provided.
If these accounts are accurate, the last known sighting of someone who looked like Paula was December 9th, not December 1st.
The Last Confirmed Sightings on the Trail
The final confirmed sightings of Paula on December 1st were:
- Ernie Whitman, who saw her at 4 PM, asking for directions to the Long Trail
- Three friends who also saw her walking toward the trail
- A group of hikers who reported seeing her at Fuller Camp, a Long Trail shelter, that same afternoon
These are the last verified moments before the folklore takes over.
Why Did Paula Welden Vanish?
So what actually happened?
The evidence suggests:
- She did go hiking.
- She may have left the area by bus that same night.
- She may have been the girl in Fall River with the drunk, abusive man.
- She may have been robbed or harmed after losing her money.
It’s messy. It’s human. It’s tragic.
But it’s nothing like the “she turned a corner and vanished” nonsense you’ll find on Fakipedia.
This case deserves better than folklore. It deserves the truth—or at least the closest we can get to it.