Wilbur was an inventor (of reclining and folding chairs), a publisher, a teacher, a salesman and a dealer in musical instruments. This leaflet announces a Feb. 18, 1881, sales presentation and organ recital to benefit the AME Church of Middletown, Conn., his hometown.

The 1910 census found him and his second wife in Kalamazoo, Mich., at the home of her daughter from a previous marriage. He died the next year back in Middletown.