Bloomfield, Vermont, in Essex County, holds the record for the coldest temperature ever logged in New England. In December of 1933, thermometers registered negative fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Meteorologists say it’s because of the town’s unique geographic location: where the Nulhegan and Connecticut rivers meet, cold air accumulates and drains down the river valley.
Bloomfield was once a thriving logging town, but its population dwindled in the last century. Still, there’s a hardy-and, I would imagine, well insulated-group of residents who call the New Hampshire border town home. In our ongoing series of postcards from Vermont towns, we catch up with two women who have held the position of Bloomfield town clerk, and then we stop by DeBanville’s General Store.