GUILFORD – The stately old homes and churches which line the streets of the tiny hamlet of Guilford bear testament to the locality’s glory days, when the community bustled with business and industry. That rich history is depicted on a timeline which now hangs in the Town of Guilford’s new Town Hall on Marble Road.

The timeline, which traces the “village’s” history from when it was first settled in 1795 to the early 1990s, is the product of countless man-hours of research and documentation by two men – Archie Hubbard and Roger Ree – over a five year period starting in 1988.

“We’re proud of it,” said Hubbard. “We can’t say enough.”

Hubbard said he and Ree undertook the project “not knowing what a job we had on our hands.”

The pair conducted interviews with local residents and poured over copies of local newspapers such as the Guilford News and Guilford Mail, and even old class yearbooks. In doing so, they paid close attention to advertisements, which proved invaluable in documenting the businesses of the day.

The two men recorded the information they gleaned from these and other sources on index cards, which they then compiled onto a scroll.

“Then from this, we made the more permanent display,” Ree explained, gesturing from the annotated scroll to the framed, painted timeline which now adorns the wall of the Town Hall’s courtroom.