Bethel, Connecticut

A hat town that grew out of Danbury's old Bethel parish, where fifteen shops were making hats by 1835, the railroad bent its route to stop, and P. T. Barnum was born and later came home to give the town a fountain.

Fairfield County · Record checked October 8, 2026

20,358Population2020 census¹

1855Became a townset off from Danbury¹

125,000Hats a yearfrom 15 shops in 1835²

1810Barnum born herethe showman, 1810 to 1891¹

3National Registerplaces, all still standing³

Then and now

The same town 159 years apart. Click either map to look closer.

1867

The landowners map

By F.W. Beers, A.D. Ellis and G.G. Soule

Every plot carries its owner's name, and the town is split into six school districts: Stony Hill, Plum Trees, Wild Cat, Wolf Pitt, Grassy Plains and Centre. Look for Bethel Academy, Northrup and Shepard Hats, the Kyle and Peck Carriage Company, the Diamond Flint Quarry and Fox Brothers Oyster and Ice Cream Saloon.⁴

See the 1867 print More about this map

1879

The bird's-eye view

By O.H. Bailey

Bethel drawn as if from the sky, in color, with the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad running through town past E.T. Farnham and Co. and Cole and Ambler fur hat makers, Clark Paper Box, Gilbert Bros. Planing Mill, Eureka Water Works, Bethel House, Fox Brothers' Hotel and the depot.⁵

See the 1879 print More about this map

2026

Bethel today

By KNOWOL

Shaded hills from downtown out to Codfish Hill and Stony Hill, every street from Greenwood Avenue to Plumtrees Road, and a guide of 28 numbered landmarks with the National Register sites marked.⁶

See the 2026 print More about this map

The story of Bethel

Fifteen hat shops and a dozen comb makers

In 1835 Bethel was still a village inside Danbury, with about fifty houses, fifteen hat shops and about twelve comb makers. The hat shops employed 200 people, women included, and made about 125,000 hats a year. Combs may have mattered even more back then, a county history said in 1881, but by that year the comb makers were "among the things that were." One old comb shop in Plumtrees had become a saw and cider mill. Hats carried on. O. Benedict and Co.'s brick factory on Grassy Plain could make 150 dozen hats a day. The hat makers formed Union No. 1 in 1856 and the finishers followed in 1860. The makers won a Saturday half holiday and liked to say of Bethel, "No Card, No Work."²⁷⁸⁹¹⁰

Barnum comes home

P. T. Barnum was born in Bethel in 1810. In 1829 he ran a fruit and confectionery store in his grandfather's carriage house, and in 1831 he opened a country store and started a newspaper, the Herald of Freedom. It soon got him sixty days in the county jail for libel. He kept editing from a good room there, and when he got out, a coach drawn by six horses, forty horsemen, sixty carriages and a band brought him home to Bethel, where the band played "Home, Sweet Home." Fifty years later he gave his birthplace a park and a bronze fountain made in Germany. At the dedication he remembered the old meeting house "without steeple or bell." The fountain cracked in a freeze in 1921, and a Doughboy statue took its place.¹¹¹¹²⁶

The railroad that almost passed Bethel by

When the railroad up from Norwalk was first surveyed, the plan left Bethel out and ran the line along Simpaug Brook instead. The engineer, Mr. Twining, suggested bending east through Grassy Plain into Bethel to gain an important station for only a little more distance, and the change was made. Not everyone believed in the route. The flat below the village was a bog, and one citizen claimed two twelve-foot rails could be pushed into it without touching bottom. The trains came anyway in 1852. Greenwood Avenue, then called Center Street, grew up between the depot and the hat shops, and three years later Bethel became a town of its own with 1,711 people.¹³⁶¹⁴

Through the years

24 moments from 1700 to today.

1700Bethel is first settled, around this year, as an outlying part of Danbury.¹
1759Bethel is made its own church society in October.²
1760The first meeting house goes up, with Rev. Noah Wetmore as minister.²
1763Ministers meet at Bethel to hear charges of false doctrine against Rev. Wetmore.¹⁵
1777General Wooster's militia reaches Bethel at eleven at night in a storm, chasing the British raiders.¹⁶
1792The house for Rev. John Ely, the parish's second minister, is built.¹⁷
1806Oliver Shepard, later Bethel's first postmaster, opens his own hat shop on Fountain Place.¹⁸
1810P. T. Barnum is born in Bethel.¹
1823Orris S. Ferry, a hat maker's son and later a U.S. senator, is born here.¹⁹
1831Barnum opens a country store and starts his newspaper, the Herald of Freedom.¹¹
1835Fifteen hat shops make about 125,000 hats a year, and about twelve comb makers employ 180 people.²
1835St. Thomas's Episcopal church is built southwest of the Congregational church.²
1842The Seth Seelye House goes up on Greenwood Avenue.²⁰
1852The railroad arrives, after a first survey that would have skipped Bethel.¹³
1855Bethel becomes a town of its own, with 1,711 people.¹⁴
1856Hat Makers Union No. 1 of Bethel is organized.⁹
1860Hat Finishers Union No. 2 is organized in July.¹⁰
1867Beers, Ellis and Soule map every landowner in town.⁴
1874W. E. Mallory starts the Bethel Press on June 26.²¹
1879O.H. Bailey draws his bird's-eye view of Bethel.⁵
1880The June census counts 2,726 people, and the comb business is gone.¹⁴
1881Barnum gives the town a park and a bronze fountain made in Germany.¹²
1928A Doughboy statue replaces the cracked fountain, and the park becomes P.T. Barnum Square.⁶
1934Rudolph Kunett starts the first vodka distillery in the United States here.¹

Places to see

The numbers match the landmark guide printed on the 2026 map.

3Bethel CinemaDowntown. The downtown movie house.
13Collis P. Huntington State ParkFar southeast corner. State park reaching into town.Visit their website
14Bethel United Methodist ChurchGreenwood Avenue. Built in 1861, the district's only church.
15Bethel StationDowntown. The depot on the old railroad line.
19P.T. Barnum SquareEast end of downtown. Barnum's gift to his hometown, 1881.
22Bethel Public LibraryGreenwood Avenue. The Seth Seelye House of about 1842.Visit their website
25Reverend John Ely HouseMilwaukee Avenue. The minister's house of about 1792.
26First Congregational ChurchMain Street. Where the 1760 meetinghouse stood.Visit their website
28Greenwood Avenue Historic DistrictDowntown. The old hat town's main street.

On the National Register

All 3 places in Bethel on the National Register of Historic Places that still stand today, oldest first, and why each one matters.³

Rev. John Ely House

Built about 1792 · Listed 2001 · 54 Milwaukee Avenue

Built for Rev. John Ely, the second minister of Bethel parish while it was still part of Danbury, it keeps much of its 18th century woodwork. Later owners included Oliver Shepard, who helped make Bethel a separate town in 1855.¹⁷
Seth Seelye House

Built about 1842 · Listed 1977 · 189 Greenwood Avenue

A Greek Revival house with four slender Doric columns holding up its front gable, built for a leading Bethel family before the town split from Danbury. It's now the Bethel Public Library.²⁰

Visit their website
Greenwood Avenue Historic District

Listed 1999 · Roughly along Greenwood Avenue, P.T. Barnum Square, Depot Place and South Street

Bethel's old commercial center, where small hat factories stood and stores spread out after the railroad came in 1852. It includes P.T. Barnum Square, the Doughboy statue, the old depot and the Bethel Opera House of about 1848.²²

In their words

“The old village meeting house, without steeple or bell, where in the square family pew I sweltered in summer and shivered through my Sunday-school lessons in winter.”

P. T. Barnum at the dedication of his fountain in 1881, from the Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, 1899¹²

“Truly, can it be said of Bethel, 'No Card, No Work.'”

Hat Makers Union No. 1 of Bethel, in a report of the Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics⁹

“Within the last thirty-five years it has made wonderful strides towards metropolitan dignity.”

History of Fairfield County, 1881, on Grassy Plain⁸