The following is excerpted from History of Addison County, Vermont, With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers.  Edited by H. P. Smith.  Published at Syracuse, New York, by D. Mason and Company, 1886.  Page 629.

The following sketch of Mr. Bidwell's settlement is furnished by his grandson SW Bidwell of East Middlebury: “George Bidwell was born in Hartford Conn. October 7, 1756 and was the fifth from the first emigrant from England viz, first John; second John; third David; fourth Amos; fifth George.  At about nineteen years of age he enlisted in the Revolutionary War and was a baker, at Ticonderoga NY.  In the year 1782 he was married to Sarah Sedgwick, born in Hartford, Conn., September 1760.  They had seven children - Chester, Lucy, Sarah, Nancy, Amanda, and George.  George Bidwell started from Connecticut in August 1787, with Horace Kellogg.  They stopped in Starksboro, Vermont.  It was then three miles from the nearest dwelling in Monkton.  They cut over two acres, laid up the body of a log hut, and then returned to Connecticut.  In March, 1787, George Bidwell started from Connecticut with his family, wife and two children, Chester and Lucy.  On the 7th of April, 1787, they arrived upon their pitch.  For four weeks after their arrival it snowed or rained every day, and during this time Mr. Bidwell suffered from an attack of pneumonia.  The next spring a small farmhouse was put up, and later an addition, which frame is that of the house now standing on the place.  His purchase was three fourths of a mile wide on the road and ran back to the mountain.  Mr. Bidwell was a cooper, and turned his ware to an account.  About 1795 his house was opened as a public “inn,” where travelers were entertained until about 1820.  Chester, the eldest son, was married January 25, 1806, to Cynthia Ross, and lived three fourths of a mile from his father, and raised nine children, of whom four are now living.  Until 1840, parents and children and grandchildren all lived on the same land, and an hour's time could gather all together.  George Bidwell died April 7, 1840, aged eighty four; his wife in 1843, aged eighty three; the former at his home where he had settled, the latter at her son Chester's, on the original pitch of land which was kept in the family name for ninety years.  The son Chester preceded her in death; he died February 27, 1842, aged fifty-nine.  George was of the Puritan Congregational order, and his wife of the Methodist order.  Mr. Bidwell was a man above the ordinary height, and possessed force and enterprise.  He shared in the town offices until he refused to serve his townsmen.