Editing Guildhall, Vermont (section)

==History==
Guildhall was chartered by New Hampshire's colonial  governor, [[Benning Wentworth]], in 1761.<ref name="NorthStar">{{cite news |date=August 15, 2022 |orig-date=September 3, 2016  |title=Essex County: Guildhall |url=https://www.northstarmonthly.com/kingdom_guide/town_profiles_history/guildhall/article_b058bdc0-71f6-11e6-8f98-b72d24e9d433.html |work=Kingdom Guide |publisher=North Star Monthly |location=Danville, VT}}</ref> Its grantees and original settlers were from [[Lancaster, Massachusetts|Lancaster]] and [[Lunenburg, Massachusetts|Lunenburg]], Massachusetts, and they named towns on opposite sides of the Connecticut River in New Hampshire and Vermont for their Massachusetts hometowns.<ref name="NorthStar"/> The southern part of the original town of [[Lunenburg, Vermont]] was chartered as Lunenburg in 1763, while the northern portion was renamed Guildhall.<ref name="NorthStar"/>

After Guildhall was chartered, a small group of settlers built temporary cabins and camps and began to clear the land.<ref name="NorthStar"/> As the population began to grow, the first recorded town meeting took place in 1783.<ref name="NorthStar"/> Guildhall is heavily wooded, as are several other towns in Essex County, and lumbering was once a major portion of the local economy.<ref name="NorthStar"/> The [[Guildhall Village Historic District]] was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1980.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref> The district includes Guildhall's village center and encompasses the central common and several nearby buildings.<ref name="nris"/>