Little about the life of Fones Wilbur beyond what is recorded in his diary entries. He was born in 1807 in New York, and he had at least two sisters, Anna Haviland and Mary. He later emigrated to Oregon, where he owned and farmed land in the Silverton area and also did carpentry; he built and painted a number of houses and other structures for neighbors and worked on their farms.

By 1855, Wilbur was a storekeeper in the Silverton area in partnership with Wilburn King, who also operated a wagon shop. Wilbur worked on King's farm, as well as his own, and apparently had a close relationship with the King family, even after the business partnership ended in December 1857. In the spring of 1858, Wilbur partnered with Timothy Davenport in a sheep-raising enterprise on Wilbur's place. Davenport, an Overland arrival in 1851, was a farmer and surveyor who became prominent in Republican politics and state government. Wilbur occasionally assisted him on surveys and also was active in Republican politics. Both men were delegates to the Territorial Convention at Salem in April 1858 and to Republican state conventions, Davenport in 1858-1859 and Wilbur in 1860. Wilbur also maintained close ties with other neighboring families, including those of Gideon Cox and Thomas J. Wilcox.

Wilbur was also active in community affairs. He served as an officer, organizer and lecturer for the Sons of Temperance, organizing the Sweethome Division No. 28 at Silverton in June 1861, and serving as an officer of a division in Waldo Hills in 1869. He apparently was foreman on construction of a school house at Bethany and was a member of the Bethany Congregational Church (also called the Silver Creek Church). In 1863, he began teaching school, probably at Bethany. Wilbur served on the founding board of trustees for a proposed Bethany College and gathered subscriptions to finance it. He worked on roads and bridges in the community, helping to raise the Pudding River Bridge in 1862 and paying toward the subscription to construct it. He later resided in Aumsville and lived until at least age 79.

Sources: Diary entries; "A History of the Silverton Country" by Robert Horace Down (Portland, Oregon: The Berncliff Press), 1926; "Sons of Temperance" Corvallis Gazette-Times, January 23, 1869; item on Fones Wilbur (Salem) Oregon Statesman, July 18, 1886, page 6, column 2; item in "Bits for Breakfast" column by R. J. Hendricks (Salem) Statesman Journal, March 9, 1935, page 4.