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Dr. William Boswell Selden

Elmwood Cemetery
7th Alley East, Lots 30 & 32
3rd Alley East, Lot 60
2nd Alley East, Lot 26
1st Alley West, Lots 6 & 8
Cedar Grove
2nd Alley West, Lot 1

Dr. William B. Selden, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, came of a line of professional men. Samuel Selden, the founder of the family in Virginia, was a lawyer born in England, who, with his wife Rebecca, daughter of Sir James Yeo, a Welsh baronet, and four sons, immigrated to America in 1699. His Virginia estate, a tract of land granted to his wife, was Buckroe Plantation, in Elizabeth City County where he was justice.

His son, John Selden, who was born in England and immigrated with his parents to Virginia, was also a lawyer, being sheriff of Lancaster County, and justice and King's attorney of Elizabeth City County. William, the son of John Selden, was educated at William and Mary College. For a few years he practiced law, but in 1770 abandoned this profession for the church, being ordained in England by the bishop of London. Returning to Virginia, the remainder of his life was spent at Hampton, where he was the last Colonial rector of St. John's Church. His son, Dr. William Boswell Selden, was educated as a physician in the city of Philadelphia and in Scotland, and settling in Norfolk, in 1798, there practiced his profession for many years. In 1802 he married Charlotte Colgate, of Maidstone, Kent, England, daughter of Robert Colgate, a university graduate and friend of William Pitt. The children of Dr. and Mrs. Selden were: Mary Ann (Cedar Grove); John; William; Susan; Robert Colgate, who married Courtney Warner Brooke; Henry, a physician, whose widow, after his death in the yellow fever epidemic of 1855, married Baron Henry von Zollikofer.*

The Selden Arcade on Main Street in Norfolk is named after the Selden family.

*Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, edited by Lyon Gardiner Tyler, 1915.

Biographical information provided by Norfolk Bureau of Cemeteries.

Visitor Information

Visitor Hours: Sunrise to Sunset

Office hours: Monday to Friday 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM

Free parking inside cemetery.

Admission Cost: Free

Address: 238 E. Princess Anne Road , Norfolk, VA 23510

Official web site for more information: www.norfolk.gov/cemeteries

Norfolk Society for Cemetery Conservation Web Site: www.norfolksocietyforcemeteryconservation.org