[2] Situated beside Wilson Pond, the former mill town is today primarily a recreation area.

The land replaced an invalidated 1727 grant by Massachusetts to veterans for service in the French and Indian Wars.

[3] The first grant (now part of Manchester, New Hampshire) was originally dubbed Harrytown after a particularly dangerous Native American,[4] then renamed Tyngstown for Captain William Tyng, leader of the expedition of "snowshoe men" that killed him in 1703.

[5] Abraham Butterfield, a settler from Wilton, New Hampshire, paid the cost of incorporation in 1803 to have the new town named after his former residence.

[6] Wilton is known for being the location of Maine's first cotton mill, started in 1810 by Solomon Adams.

Bass shoes (including those worn by Charles Lindbergh during his Atlantic crossing and Admiral Byrd in his expeditions to Antarctica) were made exclusively in Wilton for more than a century until 1998.

1878), son of G. H. Bass, was treasurer for the firm and served as Maine delegate to the Republican national convention in 1920, 1944 and 1952.

The company built much of its success on the Bass penny weejun, introduced in 1936 and said to be based on Norwegian fisherman's shoes.

The Walker Woolen Mill was built in 1840, and owner Charles Forster used the building as a toothpick mill from 1881[10] Maine architect John Calvin Stevens designed the L. Brooks Leavitt home in Wilton.

[11] An early Wall Street investment banker and rare book collector, Brooks Leavitt was an overseer and financial supporter of Bowdoin College and its library, and a relation of the Bass family.

It borders the towns of Farmington to the east, Carthage to the west, Temple to the north, and Jay to the south.