Bethel (Vermont)

Bethel
Grain warehouse in Bethel
Location in Vermont
Bethel
Basic data
Foundation :	December 23, 1779
State :	United States
State :	Vermont
County :	Windsor County
Coordinates :	43 ° 52 ′  N , 72 ° 42 ′  W Coordinates: 43 ° 52 ′  N , 72 ° 42 ′  W
Time zone :	Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Residents :	2,030 (as of 2010)
Population density :	17.4 inhabitants per km 2
Area :	117.7 km 2  (approx. 45 mi 2 ) of which 117.0 km 2  (approx. 45 mi 2 ) are land
Height :	302 m
Postal code :	05032
Area code :	+1 802
FIPS :	50-05800
GNIS ID :	1462043
Website :	townofbethelvt.com

Bethel is a town in Windsor County , Vermont , United States with a population of 2,030 (according to 2010 census).

geography

Geographical location

The place is in the middle of the mountain ranges east of the main ridge of the Green Mountains . The White River flows through the area and forms a valley that is used by roads and railways. Important elevations are Quarry Hill , 425 m (1394 ft), Woodbury Hill, 421 m (1381 ft), and Christian Hill , 415 m (1362 ft).

Neighboring communities

All distances are given as straight lines between the official coordinates of the places from the 2010 census.

• North: Randolph , 10.1 km
• Northeast: Tunbridge , 14.4 miles
• East: Royalton , 9.4 miles
• Southeast: Barnard , 5.1 mi
• South: Stockbridge , 5.1 miles
• Southwest: Pittsfield , 9.9 mi
• West: Rochester , 9.4 miles
• Northwest: Braintree , 2.3 mi

Note: Bethel and Pittsfield do not share a common border. The two towns are so close to each other that it makes sense to include them on this list.

climate

The mean mean temperature in Bethel is between −8.3 ° C (17 ° Fahrenheit ) in January and 20.0 ° C (68 ° Fahrenheit) in July. This makes the place about 2 degrees cooler compared to the long-term mean of Vermont. The snowfall between October and May is well over two meters (with a peak in January of almost 50 cm) about twice as high as the mean snow depth in the USA. The daily sunshine duration is at the lower end of the range in the USA.

history

The story of Bethel began on December 29, 1777 in Hanover , New Hampshire . There, settlers willing to emigrate had come together who wanted to acquire and settle a new piece of land on the White River. A corresponding petition was sent in March 1778 to the administration of New York, which was then responsible for the allocation of settlement land in the area of ​​what would later become Vermont, and approved on March 18, 1778. In this petition, the name Bethel was already specified for the new church. In the meantime, the new, independent Vermont Republic had been proclaimed, which also included the affected area. Bethel became the first parish to be proclaimed by the new Vermont Senate: on December 23, 1779, an area of ​​36 square miles (approximately 120 square kilometers) was granted to some settlers.

The first settlements had already started in autumn 1779. A fortified house ("stockade fort") was built when the town was founded on the north bank of the White River and named "Fort Defiance". Its occupation was initially carried out by soldiers from Royalton , after the Indian attack on neighboring Barnard on August 9, 1780, during which a Bethel citizen was kidnapped to Canada, also by its own troops. The constituent city assembly took place in 1782.

Typhus epidemics ravaged the community in 1788 and 1790. A large rubella epidemic , which affected the community in 1812/13, like many communities in the area, claimed many lives. In 1822 dysentery led to another wave of illness with deaths and decimated the young community.

From 1790 various religious communities were formed, whose pastors and bishops also looked after other communities at times. A first house of prayer was built by the Universalists in 1816, from 1823 other congregations followed with their own churches and prayer houses.

The predominantly agricultural industry - the statistics from 1840 show Bethel as a major supplier of potatoes, corn, sugar and wool - was supplemented by the mining of a granite deposit in the northern part of the community.

The further development of machining technology and the construction of the Windsor – Burlington railway line , which was put into operation on June 26, 1848 between Bethel and Windsor, led to a much larger market for agricultural products and the increased settlement of industrial companies, which began in the 1880s -Years of the town flourishing. The construction of another route through the White River Valley, the White River Railroad , turned the station into a wedge station, which distributed traffic on one of the east-west axes through Vermont and to Canada in the north to Montreal . In addition, from 1905 the two quarries in the north of the community were connected to the railway system by a separate branch line, the Bethel Granite Railway . This branch line was operated until 1933 and finally shut down in 1937. This corresponded to the development of industry in the municipality, which decreased significantly from around 1922/23. This was mainly due to the declining efficiency of the relatively small local factories. Passenger traffic on the route between White River Junction and Essex Junction was shut down in 1966, making Bethel a pure freight depot.

The population did not recover until the late 1970s. Due to the connection to the US-wide expressway system via Interstate 89 , the settlement of new industrial companies and the development of a dormitory city for the surrounding metropolitan areas, the number of residents and jobs increased again significantly. The orientation of the local service providers on tourism, which focuses on the river and the surrounding forest areas, gives the community an additional economic pillar.

Religions

Several parishes came together in the village: the Assemblies of God , the Christ Church of the Episcopals, two parishes of the United Church of Christ , the Methodist Church Millers Memorial and the Roman Catholic St. Anthony congregation.

Population development

Census Results - Town of Bethel, Vermont
year	1700	1710	1720	1730	1740	1750	1760	1770	1780	1790
Residents										473
year	1800	1810	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1890
Residents	913	1041	1318	1667	1886	1730	1834	1817	1693	1448
year	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990
Residents	1611	1943	1782	1650	1477	1534	1356	1347	1715	1866
year	2000	2010	2020	2030	2040	2050	2060	2070	2080	2090
Residents	1968	2030

Economy and Infrastructure

traffic

Bethel's most important transport links are Interstate 89 , which runs north to south , and Vermont Route 12, which runs west through the mountains in the White River Valley . The closest passenger train stations are in Randolph (10 km away) and Killington, Vermont (24 km).

Public facilities

In addition to the usual municipal authorities, Bethel also has a public library and the public schools mentioned below. The closest hospital is Gifford Medical Center in Randolph.

education

Bethel has the six-class Bethel Elementary School and the Whitcomb Junior / Senior High School , which offers grades 7 to 12 and has around 150 students. The nearest colleges are in Hanover, New Hampshire , Norwich and Middlebury , the nearest university in Plymouth, New Hampshire .

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

• Stephen Thomas (1809–1903), politician and Lieutenant Governor of the State of Vermont

Personalities who have worked on site

• Julius Converse (1798–1885), politician and governor of Vermont. Worked here as a lawyer
• Samuel E. Pingree (1832–1922), politician and governor of Vermont. Worked here as a lawyer

literature

• Zadock Thompson: History of Vermont, natural, civil and statistical, in Three Parts . Part 3. Chauncey Goodrich, Burlington 1842, p. 24 f . ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Bethel, Vermont  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

• Homepage of the municipality (English)
• Profile of the municipality on the official portal www.Vermont.gov
• Entry on VirtualVermont (English) ( Memento from March 26, 2017 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bethel in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey , accessed October 1, 2014
2. ↑ Population data from the 2010 US Census in the American Factfinder
3. ↑ Entry on Quarry Hill on www.peakery.com (English)
4. ↑ Entry on Woodbury Hill at www.peakery.com (English)
5. ↑ Entry on Christian Hill on www.peakery.com (English)
6. ↑ Coordinates of the locations of the Census Authority 2010
7. ↑ ^{a b c} climate, traffic and school data at www.City-Data.com (English)
8. ^ Benjamin H. Hall: History of Eastern Vermont . D. Appleton & Co., New York NY 1858, pp. 382 f . ( Digitizer ).
9. ↑ Historical outline of the local history on the website of the municipality (English)
10. ↑ Population 1790–2010 according to the census results