North Wilbraham was home to the industrial side of the town, along with the Boston & Albany Railroad Line, which is still in use today.

However, Haven was later changed to Ham and over the years the three separate words became combined and distorted until you had Wilbraham.

[2] The area today known as the Town of Wilbraham first became of interest in 1636 when a young man named William Pynchon (founder of Springfield) purchased the area from the Nipmuc starting at the Connecticut River in Springfield and extending to the foot of the Wilbraham Mountain Range by 1674.

Wilbraham was first settled in 1730 by Nathaniel Hitchcock along with what is now Hampden, Massachusetts, as the Fourth District of Springfield.

[2] The major poem "Minneola" (1904) by Chauncey E. Peck tells, over several hundred pages, the stories of the Indians around Wilbraham.

Stebbins was the first person to settle in the southern part of the precinct in modern-day Hampden when he built a house on the north side of the Scantic River in 1741.

[2] After many years of submitting petitions to the Massachusetts General Court the town was officially incorporated as the independent "Wilbraham" in 1763, when its population was about 400.

[5][6] On August 7, 1761, on Wilbraham Mountain, a young man named Timothy Merrick was bitten by a rattlesnake and died soon afterward.

Folklore and legend have made its way over the years about this incident including a song titled "On Springfield Mountain".

The first President of the United States, General George Washington, traveled through the town twice and on one occasion slept at a home along the Bay Path in 1790 while on his way to and from Boston.

One of the victims was not found for sixteen days and a ditch had to be dug in order to drain the pond to find her.

[2] The Underground Railroad ran through the town and several houses along Main Street and on Wilbraham Mountain served as stations.

The oldest Methodist meeting house in New England is located in the town's center, as is the campus of Wilbraham & Monson Academy, founded in 1804.

[2] North Wilbraham was the industrialized area of the town and was home to the Collins Manufacturing Company and other businesses.

Wilbraham had several potato farms in the south end of town around the time of World War II.

[2] In the summer of 1928, author H. P. Lovecraft stayed with the teacher and antiquarian Miss Evanore O. Beebe (co-author of the 1913 Wilbraham History Book) at her farmhouse on Monson Road in west Wilbraham, touring the locality with his friend and author Mrs Miniter who was a local.

After his death Lovecraft's executor August Derleth later wrote the story "The Peabody Heritage", set in Wilbraham.

During World War I, the town suffered the loss of George M. Kingdon who died fighting in France.

That tornado then moved eastward to cause extensive damage to the towns of Monson, Brimfield and Sturbridge.

On the Massachusetts Turnpike, hedges along the side of the highway have a sign and have been trimmed to read "Welcome to Wilbraham, Home of Friendly Ice Cream".

[8] The Dean Foods bankruptcy settlement sold Friendly's Ice Cream to Amici Partners Group.

[10] Flo Design Sonics, a technology company, located at 380 Main St. was acquired by Millipore Sigma in 2019.

Wilbraham & Monson Academy, a private middle and high school with an international student population, is located in the downtown.

Wilbraham is situated in such a way that its area lies within two broad physiographic provinces that cross Massachusetts from north to south.

Millions of years ago, the flat area of Wilbraham west of the mountains were once part of a shallow inland sea.