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Hampton Roads: "Where Virginia Meets the Sea"
What's in a name?  The southeast corner of Virginia is usually called "Hampton Roads", a reference to the nautical roadstead where the James and Elizabeth Rivers flow into Chesapeake Bay.  It also goes by the name "Tidewater", a nod to its seaboard setting, although this term can apply equally to the broader coastal region.
Hampton Roads was recently rebranded as "America's First Region" to honor its prominent place in the founding of our nation — including the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown.		Nowadays, the US Census Bureau refers to the region as the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News Metropolitan Statistical Area, a rather inelegant enumeration of the largest of the region's so-called "Seven Cities".
Hampton Roads is dominated by its enormous harbor, which separates the "Southside" (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Suffolk) from the "Peninsula" (Hampton and Newport News, plus Williamsburg and other neighboring communities).  A pair of "bridge-tunnels" and the James River Bridge tie together these disparate parts into a more or less coherent whole.

America's First Region | This is Tidewater | Virginia Port Authority | Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce | Hampton Roads Planning District Commission | Hampton Roads History Tours | Civil War Peninsula Campaign | Daily Press | Virginian-Pilot | WHRO Public Radio

Virginia Peninsula

The neck of land between the James and York Rivers played such an important role in the early history of the colony, that it became known as simply the Virginia Peninsula.  Of the eight original English "shires" (counties) established in 1634, the Peninsula was home to six — Elizabeth City, Warwick, Charles River (York), James City, Charles City and Henrico.  The first two colonial capitals (Jamestown and Williamsburg) were also located here, as were many of the plantations and ports which once underpinned the economy.

	Hampton
	Hampton is (probably) named in honor of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, an officer of the Virginia Company which established the colony in 1607.
Originally known as Elizabeth City, Hampton became the county seat in 1690, and merged with Elizabeth City County (as well as the town of Phoebus) in 1952.			Hampton also absorbed the town of Kecoughtan, founded in 1610, making it the oldest continuously-occupied English-speaking settlement in America.
Hampton has had a rich and colorful history.  According to legend, the head of Edward Teach, the notorious Blackbeard, was displayed here after his death in 1718 as a warning to other pirates.  The city was burned during both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, and became home to the first self-governing community of freed slaves in 1861.  Nearly a century later, NASA trained America's initial cadre of astronauts in Hampton.

Fort Monroe
	Considering the strategic importance of the Peninsula, it is no surprise that the first colonists quickly established a military outpost at Old Point Comfort, guarding the mouth of the James.
	Captain John Smith built the first wooden palisade, Fort Algernourne, in 1609, but it burned down in 1612.		The next fort on the site was destroyed by hurricane in 1667.  Fort George, erected in 1728, also succumbed to a hurricane in 1749.

In 1819, construction began on the largest stone fort ever built in the United States, named in honor of President Monroe.		Lieutenant Robert E. Lee was stationed here in 1831, and oversaw the completion of the star-shaped fort in 1834.
Fort Monroe stayed in Union hands during the Civil War, and served as an important base of operations throughout the conflict.  When runaway slaves made their way to the fort in 1861, Major General Benjamin Butler declared them "contraband" — which meant they would not be returned to their rebel owners.
Fort Monroe served as headquarters of the Army coastal artillery command until after World War II, and became home of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command in 1973.  The fort is slated for closure by 2011.

Langley Air Force Base

Langley AFB is the first military base in the United States built specifically for air operations.  It was acquired by the US Army Signal Corps in 1916 after meeting specifications — flat, near water, and close to an Army post — laid out by the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of NASA.  The base is named for Samuel Pierpont Langley, aviation pioneer and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1921, Brigadier General Billy Mitchell demonstrated the potential of air power by sinking a captured German battleship, Ostfriesland, off the Virginia coast.			The Air Corps Tactical School opened at Langley Field in 1926, and General HQ Air Force, forerunner of an independent USAF, was established here in 1935.
	After World War II, Langley became home to Tactical Air Command, responsible for fighter operations.  TAC and Strategic Air Command (SAC) merged to form Air Combat Command (ACC) in 1992.

Poquoson

This low-lying community — the term "poquoson" was used to describe a boundary line between two elevated tracts of land — claims to be the oldest continuously-named city in Virginia.  First mentioned in 1631, Poquoson Parish originally included the areas known today as Tabb, Grafton, Dare and Seaford in York County.  The southern portion of the Poquoson district was incorporated as an independent city in 1952, but still receives many services from neighboring York County.

Newport News
	Newport News is one of the younger cities in Hampton Roads.  Originally a small settlement in Warwick County, it grew quickly after the Civil War.  Incorporated in 1896, it merged with the county in 1958.

	The most widely-accepted explanation for the city's name is that Captain Christopher Newport brought news of the arrival of much-needed provisions for Jamestown in 1610.

	Other theories attribute the unusual name to Sir William Newce, who owned land in the area.  In any case, the name Newport News was in use as early as 1621.
The city's most notable benefactor was Collis P. Huntington, who founded Newport News Shipbuilding in 1886.			Now called Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, it is the world's largest privately-owned shipyard.

Other Peninsula communities:
York County | Williamsburg | James City County | Charles City County

Southside

Nowadays, most Hampton Roads residents live on the "Southside", which boasts the three most populous cities in the Commonwealth —Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Chesapeake.  Counties began springing up on the south side of the James River in 1636, when New Norfolk County — named for the birthplace of one of its leading citizens, Adam Thoroughgood — was carved out of the Peninsula's Elizabeth City County.  A year later, this jurisdiction was divided into Upper Norfolk County (renamed Nansemond County in 1646) and Lower Norfolk County, which in turn was split into Norfolk County and Princess Anne County in 1691.  Ironically, all of these counties disappeared between 1963 and 1974 in a wave of mergers with neighboring cities.

Norfolk
	Norfolk — pronounced "nahfuk" by natives — is the geographic hub of Hampton Roads.  It is also the financial and cultural center of the region, boasting the area's only opera, zoo, and minor-league baseball team.

		Parliament established the "Towne of Lower Norfolk County" in 1682, one of only three Virginia cities (along with Jamestown and Williamsburg) to receive a royal charter.
		Norfolk prospered as a shipbuilding center and port, and was  re-chartered as a borough in 1735.
With the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775, the royal governor, Lord Dunmore, tried to reestablish control of the colony from Norfolk, which remained a Tory (Loyalist) stronghold.

The subsequent struggle for the city between British and revolutionary forces left it in ashes.
		During the Civil War, Norfolk fell to Union troops in 1862, and sat out the rest of the war under martial law.

Norfolk hosted the Jamestown Exposition in 1907 at Sewell's Point.  The site was converted into a naval base during World War I; Naval Station Norfolk is now the world's largest, home to four aircraft carriers.
	U.S. Joint Forces Command, NATO Allied Command Transformation, and the Navy's Atlantic Fleet are also based in Norfolk.

	Norfolk's former city hall is now the MacArthur Memorial, final resting place of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, whose mother hailed from the city.  Across the street, the MacArthur Center has contributed to downtown revitalization.

Portsmouth
	Norfolk's neighbor across the Elizabeth River was founded in 1752 by a wealthy merchant and ship owner, Colonel William Crawford, who named it after the famous English seaport.
	The establishment of the Gosport Shipyard in 1767 launched Portsmouth's long shipbuilding tradition.		The shipyard fell into Confederate hands in 1861, despite efforts by retreating Union forces to destroy it.

The Confederates converted the burned-out hulk of the USS Merrimac into an ironclad, rechristened CSS Virginia, which fought the historic naval battle of Hampton Roads against the USS Monitor in 1862.  Soon after, the Federal army recaptured the site, and renamed it the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.

Portsmouth served as the county seat of Norfolk County until 1963, even after becoming an independent city in 1858.  Its well-preserved "Olde Towne" still reflects Portsmouth's rich historical heritage.

Virginia Beach
	The most populous city in Virginia is also one of the newest.  The seaside resort of Virginia Beach was incorporated as a town in 1906, and became an independent city in 1952.  It merged with neighboring Princess Anne County in 1963.
	The county, for its part, dates from 1691, and was named named for the heir to the English throne, the future Queen Anne (1702-14).

	The arrival of rail service and electricity in 1888 led to the rapid growth of Virginia Beach, which claims the longest "pleasure beach" in the world.  The three-mile oceanfront "boardwalk" attracts hordes of beachgoers.

Fort Story
The entrance to Chesapeake Bay is flanked by the "Virginia Capes" — Cape Henry, in Virginia Beach, and Cape Charles, on the Eastern Shore in Northampton County.  The capes are named for the two sons of King James I: Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (who died before ascending the throne), and the future King Charles I.
Cape Henry was the site of the historic "first landing" in April 1607, when three shiploads of English colonists made landfall after a 144-day transatlantic voyage.			In September 1781, a French fleet under command of Rear-Admiral Comte de Grasse, blockaded the entrance to the bay, preventing the English from reinforcing Lord Cornwallis.
	They soon continued inland, sailing up the James River to found Jamestown.		This naval standoff was critical to the American victory  at Yorktown.
In 1789, Congress authorized the erection of a lighthouse at Cape Henry — the nation's first federal lighthouse, and the first construction project under the new Constitution.			After cracks were discovered in the masonry, a new lighthouse was commissioned.  Completed in 1881, the second Cape Henry lighthouse is still in service today.
Cape Henry is contained within the Fort Story Military Reservation, established in 1916.

Other Southside communities:
Chesapeake | Suffolk | Isle of Wight County

This page was first published 31 May 2008, and last updated 03 January 2009.