Hampton, Virginia In Images Of America

The Images of America series captures the local history of America in 128 page volumes consisting of photographs and running commentary. For the most part, the volumes appeal to a local audience - to people who live or have close ties to the subject matter of the book. Apart from sales over the Internet, the volumes are distributed primarily on a regional basis.

I enjoy finding Images of America volumes for places I don't know. The volumes provide me with a sense of place and a feeling for the diversity of the United States and for portions of history that find little place in formal studies. Thus, I was pleased to find in a library this little book on Hampton, Virginia, a small city in the southeast part of the state on Chesapeake Bay and the Hampton River. I visited Hampton briefly several years ago but otherwise have no connection to the city or its environs. The book helped me get inside what, for me, was an unfamiliar place. The book was written by two long-time local residents, J. Michael Cobb and Wythe Holt, who are affiliated with the Hampton History Museum. Most of the photographs are drawn from the museum's collection and are not widely accessible in sources outside the book.

The book takes a long view of Hampton beginning with its initial settlement by the English in the early 17th Century and continuing to the present day. It was fascinating to see the cycles of the city over time. Beginning as a small tobacco port, Hampton flourished until it was burned by the Confederates in 1861, early in the Civil War for fear that it would become a haven for escaped slaves from nearby Fort Monroe. After the Civil War, Hampton slowly rebuilt itself and achieved prosperity through its crab and oyster harvests. It received the nickname "Crabtown". With the Depression and later urban decay, Hampton suffered a long decline. In recent years, as with many cities in America, Hampton has reinvented itself.

Cobb and Holt have succeeded in presenting a diverse portrait of Hampton which includes its Native American history and its significant African American presence. The city is home to a famous historic African American college, now known as Hampton University, founded shortly after the Civil War. A still-standing landmark at the University is the Emancipation Oak, This is the site at which President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was first read in Hampton shortly after January 1, 1863, when it was promulgated. Booker T. Washington was among the notable early graduates of Hampton. Other individual photographs in this volume from Hampton's past include its most famous citizen, George Wythe, a scholar and lawyer whose students included Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay, the pirate Blackbeard who plagued the town and its commerce during colonial years, and the Hampton "pyramids", four-story mountains of oyster shells that graced the waterfront during the city's glory years as a producer and shipper of seafood.

The book is organized into eight chapters each of which begins with a short introduction. The first four chapters cover early history, including the early settlement, Hampton's growth as a tobacco port, the threats posed to Hampton during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and the near total destruction of the city when it was burned in 1861.

The subsequent four chapters deal with the rebuilding, decay, and rebirth of Hampton. In the years after the Civil War, rebuilding began and Hampton became home to many Freedmen seeking a better life. Beginning in the 1880s. Hampton flourished with the growth of its seafood industry, amply shown in the book in photos of boats, fishermen, and water. The book then focuses on downtown Hampton with its commerce, schools, buses and trolleys, places of worship, and recreational activity that developed with the success of the seafood industry. A final chapter discusses the decline of Hampton in the 1930s, natural disasters such as floods and fires, and the efforts of residents of the city to rebuild, as they had done once before following the Civil War.

I enjoyed visiting Hampton in this book. This series of local histories shows how much there is in places throughout our country to learn about and appreciate.