[4] Hill-farmers from Temple, New Hampshire, Old North Yarmouth, Maine, and nearby Farmington settled the town beginning in 1796.

Commercial sawmills operated on Temple Stream in the village for many years in the 1800s and 1900s, providing the town a robust local economy.

Logging is still vibrant in Temple, but its timber is now trucked to mills in nearby towns.

The bell tower now sits in a semi-restored state at the town hall), a fire station, and a youth baseball field, established in 1957, commemorating the life of Larry Boyce, the former Temple Townies player and manager for whom the field is named.

What is now Maple Street was once called Cowturd Lane, due to "the smell of manure, fresh from cows walking in the road on their way to (pasture) and back, hanging in the air like swamp gas.

"[5] Temple is a sanctuary for writers, poets, artists, and crafters, and the setting for several novels, biographies, and memoirs: Shawno (George Dennison), Temple (Dennison), Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey (Bill Roorbach), Upcountry: Reflections from a Rural Life (Robert Kimber), A Soldier's Son: An American Boyhood During World War II (John E. Hodgkins), and The Town that Ends the Road (Theodore Enslin).

Besides the above, a number of well-known writers either lived or summered in Temple, including Denise Levertov, Mitchell Goodman, and C. J. Stevens.

The racial makeup of the town was 98.60% White, 0.17% Native American, 0.52% Asian, and 0.70% from two or more races.