In the seventeenth century,Kecoughtan was the name of the settlement now known asHampton, Virginia. In the early twentieth century, it was also the name of a town nearby inElizabeth City County. It was annexed into theCity of Newport News in 1927.
Kecoughtan inVirginia was originally namedKikotan (also spelledKiccowtan,Kikowtan), the name of theAlgonquian people living there when colonists led byCaptain John Smith arrived in theHampton Roads area in 1607.
According toWilliam Strachey,Chief Powhatan had slain theweroance at Kecoughtan in 1597, appointing his own young son Pochins as successor there, while resettling some of the tribe at thePiankatank River. Powhatan annihilated the inhabitants at Piankatank in 1608.
The Kecoughtan village was where Captain John Smith and his group of settlers received their first welcome in 1607. The tribe remained generally friendly to them until the summer of 1609, when presidentJohn Smith sent Captain Martin to forcibly take over the island inhabited by theNansemonds, across the mouth of the James. A company of 17 men mutinied from Martin and absconded to Kecoughtan to buy corn, where they were all killed. Martin abandoned the Nansemonds' island and returned to Jamestown.
The colonists then builtFort Algernon atOld Point Comfort beside their main village in October 1609. After the arrival ofLord De La Warr, the colonistsseized the native village on July 9, 1610, by luring them out with atambourine player, then attacking them. The surviving Kecoughtans fled to merge with other groups in the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom.[1]
On the same date in 1610, theElizabeth City Parish was founded. The area and the parish has since been continuously occupied. RenamedSt. John's Episcopal Church in 1830, the parish is the oldest English-speaking parish in the US today. The current church, constructed in 1728, is the fourth built for the parish.[2]
Kecoughtan became part ofElizabeth River Shire in 1634, andElizabeth City County in 1637. In the 1690s, Kecoughtan became part of the newly incorporated Town of Hampton, which later became anindependent city. Elizabeth City County and its only incorporated town,Phoebus, both agreed to a consolidation with Hampton in 1952, forming the currentCity of Hampton.
Through Fort Algernon and the Kecoughtan settlement, Hampton can claim to be the oldest continually occupied English-speaking settlement in theUnited States, by virtue of Jamestown (which usually claims this distinction) having been abandoned for two days in June 1610,[3] and also because after 1698, when the capital of the Virginia colony and the parish seat moved from James town to Williamsburg, the buildings at Jamestown, including the church, were abandoned.[4][5]
In an area immediately to the southwest of the original settlement, theincorporated town ofKecoughtan was formed on January 1, 1916, withinElizabeth City County. It was located between Salters Creek and Hampton Roads and was developed by the Newport News, Hampton, and Old Point Development Company.[6] The major business located in the town was Elizabeth Buxton Hospital. It was served by Woodrow Wilson School and a town hall and firestation.[7]
Eleven years later it was annexed by the independent city ofNewport News on January 1, 1927. At that time the town's population was 1,198 and the total length of its streets five miles.[8] The hard surface roadway connecting the area to the city ofHampton opened in 1910 and was named Kecoughtan Road for the town. It was incorporated intoUS Route 60.[9]
37°00′52″N76°20′47″W / 37.01444°N 76.34639°W /37.01444; -76.34639
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