Haverö Parish has a historical continuity from the Stone Age onwards. A large number of blast furnaces indicate early iron extraction from bog iron and iron-rich soil, as confirmed by the oldest found parish seal with its tongs and hammer. From the later part of the Middle Ages, agriculture and livestock farming likely also played a significant role.
The parish name Haverö comes from the earlier name Haffra, as mentioned in the land register of 1550, which changed to Harföö at the beginning of the 17th century.
Haverövallen is the church village in Haverö Parish, located on a peninsula on the northern shore of Lake Havern, the oldest documented church site in Norrland. The current church, built in 1850, stands on the same site where the original church was erected around 1270. South of the church is a five-metre-high erratic boulder that, before the current church was built, served as a boundary stone against Norway. Even earlier, it is said to have been used as a sacrificial stone when there was a pagan sacrificial site here.
From the turn of the 16th to 17th centuries onwards, an influx of forest Finns (or slash-and-burn Finns) took place in Haverö Parish, originally around the villages of Byberget and Snöberg. The slash-and-burn Finns came from Savonia, a migration wave initiated by land shortages, famine, and the Swedish state's interest in breaking new ground in coniferous forest areas.
Haverö is a distinct forest parish; the industries that have existed have been wholly or partly connected to the forestry industry, such as the logging operations that provided employment for large parts of the population.