Hampton

Understand

Hampton was settled in 1610 after Captain Christopher Newport and his men arrived and first called the area Point Comfort in 1607. Although they would found Jamestown upriver prior to Hampton, Hampton is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited town in the USA due to Jamestown's abandonment in 1699.

Hampton is also notable in that it is considered to be the start of the slave trade in America, when a ship called the White Lion brought indentured servants (though basically slaves) from the modern day area of Angola in 1619.

After British forces captured the defense works of Point Comfort in the War of 1812, the US army established Fort Monroe on the site, which would later become important in the Civil War, and as a place of imprisonment for Jefferson Davis following the war in a section called the Casemate.

Because Fort Monroe was largely held by the Union, emancipated or contraband slaves formed a colony at the location and subsequently developed a center of learning called Hampton University after ignoble beginnings beneath a tree called Emancipation Oak.

Today, Hampton is known as being the home for Langley Air Force Base.

Get in

By car

• Interstate 64 travels through downtown Hampton. It intersects Interstate 95 in Richmond and Interstate 81 near Staunton.

By bus

Inter-city buses arrive and depart at the Hampton Transit Center, 2 W Pembroke Ave (at N King St).

• Greyhound.
• Megabus. Service from New York City, Philadelphia, Newark, DE, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Richmond. Fares from $1 and up.