A great many things have happened in Hampton during 400 years and more of history. Listing all of the historic significant persons, places and events in Hampton's history would fill a book, so here are some of the most noteworthy dates and events.
1607
Arriving aboard ships that originally sailed from England, Captains John Smith, Christopher Newport and Bartholomew Gosnold made landfall near a Kecoughtan Indian village. They named the site Point Comfort and after exploring the area for a few weeks, moved further up the James River to establish the settlement at Jamestown.
1610
English colonists settled on the site of a Kecoughtan Indian village first visited three years earlier. The small collection of homesteads evolved into present-day Hampton, the first continuously occupied English-speaking settlement in America.
1619
A Dutch ship calls at Old Point Comfort with cargo that included more than 20 Africans captured from a slave ship. These were the first Africans to come ashore on English-occupied land in what would become the United States.
1819-1834
Fort Monroe and adjacent Fort Wool, which was built on a man-made island a short distance from Fort Monroe, were constructed as defensive fortifications intended to guard Hampton Roads. A young lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Robert E. Lee, worked on the project. While construction of Fort Monroe was completed in 1834, Fort Wool's construction was never finished.
1861
Three runaway enslaved men seeking their freedom—Shepard Mallory, Frank Baker and James Townsend—make their way by boat to Fort Monroe. Commander of Union forces Major General Benjamin F. Butler refuses to return them to their Confederate owners, declaring that they were "contraband of war." The news spread and more escaped slaves fled to the fort for protection. As their numbers grew, they erected housing that was nicknamed "Slabtown" outside the crowded post and neighboring Camp Hamilton. The Grand Contraband Camp built among the ruins of burned Hampton became the first self-contained African-American community in the United States.
1862
The first meeting in combat of ironclad warships took place in the waters off Hampton when the CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) dueled with the USS Monitor. They battered each other to an inconclusive draw, but the era of wooden naval warships came to a decisive end.
1863
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was read to the contrabands and free black citizens under an oak tree in Hampton. Known from that day on as the Emancipation Oak, the historic tree is 98 feet (30 m) in diameter and stands on the campus of Hampton University. The tree also sheltered Mary Peake, a pioneering educator who had begun secretly teaching black students (it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write at that time) in her mother's home prior to the war. In 1861, classes were moved outdoors and taught beneath the tree. Peake died February 22, 1862. Her gravesite is located in Elmerton Cemetery on King Street.
1868
Hampton University was founded as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute under the leadership of Samuel Chapman Armstrong, former superintendent of the Hampton area Freedman's Bureau. The school trained and provided African Americans with manual and academic skills. Using $19,000 acquired from the American Missionary Association, the school opened with two teachers, 15 pupils, and Armstrong as principal.
1915
The U.S. Congress established the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). These early researchers used more than 40 wind tunnels to study improved aircraft and —later—spacecraft safety, performance and efficiency.
1917
NACA opened Langley Field, which served as a flying field, balloon station, observers' school, photography school, and experimental engineering department and for aerial coast defense by the Army Air Service. As the Army Air Service's role expanded, its designation changed to the Army Air Corps in 1926 and the Army Air Force in 1941. In 1947 it became a separate branch of the military entirely, the United States Air Force.
1948
Langley Field was renamed Langley Air Force Base. Today it is known as Joint Base Langley-Eustis and is home to the U.S. Air Force's 633rd Air Base Wing, 1st Fighter Wing and 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing. You can view Langley aircraft and artifacts at the Virginia Air & Space Center.
1958
NACA became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA trained the Mercury Seven astronauts, the first Americans to fly into space, at facilities in Hampton. The Virginia Air & Space Center (link to
http://www.vasc.org/) serves as the visitor center of NASA Langley and Joint Base Langley-Eustis.
1952
Following the approval of a referendum by voters of each locality, the City of Hampton, the incorporated town of
Phoebus and Elizabeth City County were all politically consolidated into a single independent city under the name of Hampton.
1970
The Hampton Coliseum opened. A multi-use facility owned by the City of Hampton, the crown-shaped arena hosts a wide variety of events, including concerts, athletic events, circus performances, consumer shows and conventions.
2005
The Hampton Roads Convention Center opened its doors. Under a dramatic white tensile structure reminiscent of a sailing craft on the Chesapeake Bay, the center offers 344,000 total square feet and 35 flexible meeting and event spaces accommodating up to 14,000 delegates, including a grand ballroom with banquet seating for more than 2,000 and a 108,000-square-foot exhibit hall.
2010
More than 30 new stores opened on the same day at the new
Peninsula Town Center. The mix of department and specialty retailers and restaurants, as well as commercial office and residential space above stores on some buildings was constructed on the site of the former Coliseum Mall.
2011
Fort Monroe ceased operation as a U.S. Army military installation on September 15, 2011. The historic fort and surrounding structures will welcome visitors through a partnership between the Fort Monroe Authority, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the City of Hampton and the National Park Service.
