The area in the south, including present-day Philadelphia and nearby Ambler, was the home of Unami-speaking Lenape.

[8] William Harmer built a gristmill powered by the Wissahickon Creek, "the first commercial venture in the Ambler area".

[9] He also built a stone dwelling with casement windows and diamond shaped leaded glass, near what is now the intersection of Butler Pike and Morris Road.

The northbound Shackamaxon, a picnic excursion train, and the southbound Aramingo collided head on, killing 59 people instantly, and injuring another 86 passengers.

Mary Ambler, a local Quaker resident, walked two miles to the crash site, bringing medical supplies and directing rescue efforts.

[13] She turned her house at Tennis Avenue and Main Street into an impromptu hospital for nursing the survivors.

[10]: 7 In 1881, the Keasbey and Mattison Company, whose business included the manufacture of asbestos, moved to Ambler from Philadelphia.

"[18] Keasbey and Mattison invested heavily in the town, bringing in Southern Italian stoneworkers to build 400 houses for workers and managers, as well as offices, an opera house, the Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church,[19][20] and Mattison's personal estate, Lindenwold Castle.

[23] The company also employed African Americans, originally from West Virginia, in the less-desirable wet-processing areas of the asbestos plant.

In England in 1924, doctors reported the first case of asbestosis, a chronic illness caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers.

Richard Doll, an epidemiologist at Turner and Newall, reported (in spite of company pressure) that people exposed to asbestos for 20 or more years had a 10 times higher risk of developing lung cancer than the general population.

Also, a formerly rare and almost always fatal cancer, mesothelioma, was reported in epidemic proportions near asbestos mines in South Africa.

In the 1960s, the British Journal of Industrial Medicine indicated that simply living near an asbestos factory, or in an asbestos-insulated building, increased mesothelioma risk.

[21] Turner & Newall operated the factory until it closed in 1962, then sold the property to CertainTeed Corporation and Nicolet Industries.

[21] In 1974, Nicolet held a competition, offering a $20,000 prize for the proposal of a "feasible commercial application" for its waste chalk piles.

[21] In Ambler, where more than 1.5 million cubic yards of asbestos waste were discarded in a 25-acre area known as the "White Mountains",[21] contamination remains an issue.

[21] In 2013, Heckendorn Shiles Architects and Summit Realty Advisers successfully converted the derelict factory and smokestack of the Keasbey & Mattison company into a LEED Platinum Certified multi-tenant office building, the Ambler Boiler House.

[35] During the American Revolutionary War, "Dawesfield" was the property of James Morris, and was used by General George Washington as a headquarters from October 21 to November 20, 1777.

Ambler has a city manager form of government with a mayor and a nine-member borough council.

Our Lady of Mercy was formed in 2012 by the merger of St. Anthony-St. Joseph in Ambler, St. Alphonsus in Maple Glen, and St. Catherine of Siena in Horsham.

[52] Founded in 1951, the Ambler Symphony Orchestra currently performs several concerts per year under the musical direction of WRTI program director Jack Moore.

The murals were intended to boost the morale of the American people from the effects of the Depression by depicting uplifting subjects.

[56] In 1939, artist Harry Sternberg completed the mural The Family, Industry and Architecture for the town's post office.

Bethlehem Pike runs along the eastern border of Ambler and heads north to Montgomeryville and south to Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania Route 309 passes to the east of Ambler on a freeway called the Fort Washington Expressway, with access to Ambler at a southbound exit and northbound entrance at Butler Pike and a northbound exit and southbound entrance at Susquehanna Road.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike (Interstate 276) has an interchange with PA 309 south of Ambler in Fort Washington.