[4] Farmington is home to Blue Job State Forest, the Tebbetts Hill Reservation, and Baxter Lake.

The native Abenaki people called the area Chemung, meaning "canoe place",[7] and used the three rivers—the Cocheco, the Ela, and the Mad—for transportation.

Otherwise, the river valley was wilderness, through which the native peoples from the north traveled to and from Lake Winnipesaukee on their way to other areas and hunting grounds.

To stop the raids, in 1721 the colonial assembly in Portsmouth approved construction of a fort at the foot of the lake, with a soldiers' road built from Dover to supply it.

Farmers cultivated the rocky soil, and gristmills used water power of streams to grind their grain.

In 1790, Jonas March from Portsmouth established a store, behind which teamsters unloaded on his dock the lumber he traded.

Inhabitants of the Northwest Parish were taxed to support both the meetinghouse and minister on Rochester Hill about 12 miles (19 km) away, a distance which made attendance difficult.

A movement began in the 1770s to establish a separate township, and in 1783 a petition for charter was submitted to the state legislature.

In the 19th century, the community developed a prime shoemaking industry, and was one of the first places to use automated machines instead of handwork.

In 1836, shoe manufacturing began at a shop on Spring Street built by E. H. Badger, although it was soon abandoned to creditors.

Brushes were manufactured by the F. W. Browne Company, from which Booker T. Washington ordered twelve street brooms in 1915 for use at the Tuskegee Institute.

The highest point in Farmington is Blue Job Mountain, at 1,350 feet (410 m) above sea level, near the town's southwestern border.

This means that with changing socio-economic pressures, a larger portion of the town's population is at risk of falling into poverty than is the case elsewhere in the county.