The town developed in the Late Middle Ages under the patronage of the Polish noble Wierusz family.

[3] Augustyn Kordecki, prior of the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, commander of the heroic and successful Polish defense of Jasna Góra during the Swedish invasion in 1655, died in the monastery in Wieruszów in 1673.

The town was annexed by Prussia in the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, then regained by Poles and included within the newly established, but short-lived, Duchy of Warsaw in 1807, and in 1815 it passed to the Russian Partition of Poland, while its Podzamcze suburb fell again to Prussia, and from 1871 formed part of Germany.

In April 1919, the German artillery fired 18 shells from Podzamcze at a crowd at the town's weekly market, killing seven people, including a 9-year-old boy.

[4] From June to August 1919, the Germans repeatedly shelled the town and attempted an invasion, but were repelled by the Poles.

As a result of the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was occupied by Germany.

[5] Over the next two years, the Germans kidnapped Jews for forced labour, required them to live in a ghetto in the poorest part of town, turning over their former residences to Poles, and sent both men and women to work camps near Poznań.

Others were sent to the Łódź Ghetto, and the remainder, perhaps 800–900, were taken by train to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were immediately gassed.