Hampton

Hampton, Virginia

Hampton, independent city, southeastern Virginia, U.S. It lies on the Chesapeake Bay and the north shore of Hampton Roads (natural roadstead), opposite Norfolk, to which it is linked by the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. The city forms part of a metropolitan complex, including Newport News, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, and Portsmouth.

Hampton originated around Fort Algernourne (now Fort Monroe), built in 1609 on the site of the village of Kecoughtan, named for the tribe that inhabited it, to protect the area from Spanish raiders. Permanent settlement dates from 1610, which makes it the nation’s oldest continuously settled community of English origin. It became part of Elizabeth City (later reorganized as Elizabeth City county) in 1620. St. John’s Church was established in 1610; the present structure, dating from 1728, has been restored. Hampton, named in the late 1600s for Henry Wriothesley, 3rd earl of Southampton, was organized as a town in 1705. It grew as a seaport, being surpassed later by Norfolk. Attacked by pirates (notably Blackbeard) in the early 1700s, and again during the American Revolution and the War of 1812, it was burned by Confederates in 1861 at the beginning of the American Civil War to prevent its capture by Union forces occupying nearby Old Point Comfort and Fort Monroe. It was rebuilt after the war and later flourished with the arrival of the railroad in the 1880s. Fishing and seafood-processing industries subsequently developed.

Military installations and tourism are important to the economy. Fort Monroe (headquarters for the U.S. Continental Army Command), Langley Air Force Base, and the Langley Research Center for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are in the city. The Syms-Eaton Museum commemorates Benjamin Syms and Thomas Eaton, who founded the first free schools (1634 and 1659, respectively) in America; the two schools merged in 1805 as Hampton Academy, which was later absorbed into the city’s public school system. Hampton University (1868) was established by General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, an agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, to educate former slaves. Thomas Nelson Community College opened there in 1968. Incorporated as a town in 1849 and as a city in 1908, Hampton merged with Elizabeth City county and the town of Phoebus in 1952. Pop. (2010) 137,436; (2020) 137,148.