[in Section on Dagsborough and Baltimore Hundreds]p44-45

The largest town in Baltimore Hundred, Selbyville, grew up during the early 
19th century around a long since departed millpond. The first settler in the 
area was the blacksmith and Revolutionary War soldier Matthew McCabe.{his 
father John was the Rev. War soldier) In 1817 Joseph Jena(sic=Joseph&Zeno 
Long)and Isaiah McCabe (sic?) started a sawmill after damming up a stream which 
drained into the Bishopville Branch of the St. Martin's River several miles 
away. 

The Town got its  present name after Samuel Selby moved there from Maryland, 
moving a store building with him in 1842. He bought out Jena(sic=the Longs) and 
McCabe. Selby later sold his store to William S. McCabe who considerably 
enlarged the business until it was one of the largest general stores in the 
county by the 1880s. While logically the town might best have been named 
"McCabeville", the name "Selby's Millpond" appears to have considerably 
outlasted Selby himself, perhaps because the first postmaster of the town in 
1845 was a relative named Josiah Selby, although the next three postmaster 
there were all McCabes.

Selbyville, like Frankford and Millsboro, was on the main county road southward 
from Georgetown, a fact which played a significant role in its early growth and 
was also a consideration in determining the course in the first railroad to be 
run through the center of the county. With that development, expansion came 
quickly up and down the line. 

In 1881, the Selbyville Steam Saw and Planing Mill was opened by E.J.(sic=D.J.) 
Long, J. McNeill and H. Campbell (sic?=G,J,E?). That enterprise was followed in 
short order by the W.S. McCabe & Son steam flour mill and grain elevator and by 
a growing number of general stores, specialty stores, blacksmith shops and 
other enterprises. By the turn of the century, Selbyville was growing in 
importance as a center of the strawberry industry. In the years that followed, 
it also became an important center of the nursery business with the 
establishment of Bunting's Nurseries.