A Brief History of Millsboro, Delaware
 Millsboro's origin, like that of many towns, is
an accident of geography. It is situated at the first point on the Indian River,
as one proceeds up the river from its mouth, narrow enough to allow for the
construction of an earthen dam and bridge with the technology available in the
Late 18th Century. Thus the town generally sets the date for its establishment
as 1792, the year Elisha Dickerson dammed up the headwaters of the Indian River
at the point known as Rock Hole ( because of the annual spawning of rockfish
there). In fact, there had been a thriving rural farming community in existence
in the area for more than a century by that date. Most early white residents
were second or third generation residents of the Maryland and Virginia Eastern
Shore and when they arrived in the area they called "Head of Indian River" the
river served as the boundary between the Colony of Maryland and William Penn's
"Three Lower Counties Upon Delaware."
The area had had a much earlier Indian presence. As English settlement pressures
in the area now known as Worcester County, the Indians who had originally been
known as Assateagues and who had lived in the coastal area of Worcester began
moving gradually northwest during the middle and late 1600s, stopping first
along Assawoman Bay and then near the Head of Indian River. Once there they
became known as "Indian River Indians" and it is probable that the river was
named for them. In 1711 the Maryland Colonial Assembly established a reservation
for them on the southwestern site of the river, encompassing much of what is now
the southwestern side of Millsboro. Over the years this "Indian Land" was
gradually purchased by members of the Burton family and together with their
other lands served as a major plantation. Their home farm stood just west of
U.S. 113 near present-day Hickory Hill Road and the farm road which ran from
this farm to their landing on Indian River became in later years the public road
we known as "Old Landing road." it is probable that surviving elements of the
Indian community joined with other Indian groups such as the Nanticokes to form
the original Indian River Hundred Nanticoke community.
Elisha Dickerson's large grist mill and saw mill were only two of the more than
fifteen grist and saw mills which existed within a four-mile radius of Millsboro
in the Early 19th Century. Originally, however, the name "Millsborough" applied
only to the area on the northeastern side of the river where Dickerson's grist
mill was located, and it only got this name in 1809 when residents adopted it as
an alternative to the earlier "Rock Hole Mills". The growing community on the
southwestern side of the river was known as "Washington" until 1837 when two
villages became a single community under the name Millsborough, later shortened
to Millsboro.
The mills were quickly augmented by other industries, prominent among which were
a tannery, a thriving business in the shipment of hand-hewn cypress shingles
made from the vast stands of cypress in the nearby Great Cypress Swamp, and an
iron furnace and foundry which used as its raw material the deposits of crude
"bog iron" which occurred naturally in many area steams. The foundry and forge,
which operated until after the Civil War, were located at what is now known as
Cupola Park. The word iron business and one which considerably outlived it was
the charcoal business. This continued until shortly before the Second World War.
But the great mainstay of the local economy was the same in the 18th and 19th
Centuries as it is today -- agriculture and timber, albeit with the many changes
along the way.
Millsboro had always been a market center for the outlying area because of its
river location and thus it was natural for the railroad to be routed through the
town when it was developed in the years following the Civil War. This helped
growth to continue slowly but steadily through the Late 19th and Early 20th
Centuries. In the 1890s two large lumber mills began operation. One of several
Houston brothers, members o the prominent local farming family, was a principal
in each mill. The company which eventually prevailed was Houston-White Company
whose managing partner was William J.P. White. This company continued as
Millsboro's largest industry until the 1950s.
Another thriving business which began in the Early 20th Century was the
manufacture of holly wreaths, which were distributed nationally from Millsboro
into the 1950s. The cultivation of strawberries was also important for many
years though this business never reached the overwhelming proportions it did in
Selbyville and Bridgeville, which were national leaders around the turn of the
century. Tomato canneries were another leading business in the Early 1900s. Like
most of the other agricultural pursuits these were seasonal operations.
From the early 1930s on the dominate "crop" produced in the Millsboro areas as
in most other parts of Sussex County was the broiler. The poultry business had
the major advantage over most other types of agriculture that it could be
carried on all year, thus reducing the risk of a particular crop. The leading
practitioner of this business locally was an is Townsend's, Inc. The Townsend
family which had long been involved in lumber, strawberry cultivation, orchards
and canneries gradually converted its vast Indian Swan Orchards just east of
Millsboro to the production of poultry and related products between the
mid-1930s and the mid-1950s. By the 1940s, Townsend's, Inc. had become the
nation's first fully integrated poultry company, meaning that they had every
aspect of poultry growing under their control from the hatching of eggs and the
growing of grain for poultry feed to dressing the birds and shipping them to
market, although Townsend's, Inc. was the largest local poultry company there
were and still are many others.
In recent years Millsboro has experienced almost continuous economic growth. One
setback occurred when the town's large National Cash Register plant ceased
operation many years ago, but the vacant plant was Purchased by First Omni Bank
(now Allfirst Financial Center), which uses the building for banking operations.
Over the centuries the town has seen vast change, but many of the best things
about life in Millsboro remain unaltered as the town's fourth century of
progress begins.
Richard B. Carter
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For additional information call the
Millsboro Town Hall at 302-934-8171.
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