Founded under a charter granted on July 4th, 1761, by Royal Governor Benning Wentworth of the Province of New Hampshire, Norwich was shaped by the determination and skills of early settlers, and its legacy endures in Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival buildings clustered near the town green. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the town prospered from the 1820s to the 1900s through exports of agricultural and manufacturing products, while Norwich University and nearby Dartmouth College attracted residents. In 1866, after the South Barracks of Norwich University burned, the school relocated to Northfield, Vermont. Home to Norwich University founder Alden Partridge, artist Paul Sample, and many Olympians, Norwich also fostered reform and civic life through the 1843 Norwich Female Abolition Society, the circa 1894 Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the first Vermont YMCA band, which played on the green for years. In 1963, President Kennedy established the Dresden School District, the first interstate school system in the country. The Lewis House, built circa 1807, became home in 1846 to General William Lewis, who was the first of five generations of his family to live and work there while serving as Town Clerk and Treasurer, and the house remained in the family until 2003, when the Historical Society purchased it.