Old Point Comfort is a point of land located in theindependent city ofHampton, Virginia. Previously known asPoint Comfort, it lies at the extreme tip of theVirginia Peninsula at the mouth ofHampton Roads in theUnited States. It was renamed Old Point Comfort to differentiate it fromNew Point Comfort 21 miles (34 km) up theChesapeake Bay.[1] Agroup of enslaved Africans (first fleet) was brought tocolonial Virginia at this point in 1619. Today the location is home to Continental Park andFort Monroe National Monument.
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For more than 400 years, Point Comfort served as a maritime navigational landmark and military stronghold.
According to a combination of old records and legend, the name derived from an incident when the Jamestown settlers first arrived. CaptainChristopher Newport's flagship,Susan Constant, anchored nearby on 28 April 1607. Members of the crew "rowed to a point where they found a channel which put them in good comfort".[2][3] They named the adjacent landCape Comfort.[1]
Point Comfort formed the beginning of the boundary of theColony of Virginia. The Second Charter of the Virginia Company, granted in 1609, gave the company:
all those Lands, Countries, and Territories, situate, lying, and being in that Part of America, called Virginia, from the pointe of lande called Cape or Pointe Comfort all alonge the seacoste to the northward two hundred miles and from the said pointe of Cape Comfort all alonge the sea coast to the southward twoe hundred miles; and all that space and circuit of lande lieinge from the sea coaste of the precinct aforesaid upp unto the lande, throughoute, from sea to sea, west and northwest . . .[4]
Because of the ambiguity as to which line was to run west and which northwest, the charter gave the Virginia Company either about 80,000 square miles (210,000 km2) of eastern North America, or about one-third of the entire continent, extending to thePacific Ocean.[5] The Colony of Virginia chose the interpretation which gave it the larger area, and theCommonwealth of Virginia continued to claim much of theOhio Valley and beyond, until after the American Revolution. In 1784, Virginia gave up most of these claims, and the relinquished area was organized as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio (commonly known as theNorthwest Territory) on July 13, 1787. In 1789, the remaining claims were abandoned when Virginia allowedKentucky to become its own state, which it did on June 1, 1792.
In the fall of 1609, aCaptain John Ratcliffe built the first English fort in the area, known asFort Algernon.
In August 1619, theFirst Africans in Virginia arrived in what was then known as the Colony of Virginia (although the first people of direct African descent onmainland North America were enslaved by a Spanish colony inSouth Carolina in 1526,[6][7] and the firstrecorded birth with direct African ancestry took place in Florida in 1606[8]). Those enslaved arrived in theWhite Lion, aprivateer owned byRobert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, but flying aDutch flag, which docked at Point Comfort. The approximately 20-25 Africans had been enslaved during a war fought byPortugal and some local African allies,[9] against theKingdom of Ndongo, in modernAngola, and had been taken off aPortuguese slave ship, theSão João Bautista.[10][11]
The humid conditions and exposure to Atlantic coastal storms caused the plank and timber forts at these locations to constantly deteriorate. In 1630,Capt Samuel Matthews was commissioned to rebuild the fort at Old Point Comfort, and it was completed by 1632.[12]
In 1665, ColonelMiles Cary, a member of theVirginia Governor's Council, was assigned to place armaments at the fort during heightened tensions resulting from theSecond Anglo-Dutch War. Cary was hit by a cannonball from aDutchfrigate, and died of those wounds on June 10, 1667.[13]
The Virginia colonies would build another fort at Point Comfort called Fort George in 1728. Despite it being made of masonry, Fort George was washed away by The Coastal Hurricane of 1749.[14][15][16] Without a fort to protect the waterway from warships, the lighthouse was captured by theBritish during theWar of 1812, when aRoyal Navy fleet sailed into the Chesapeake. After their futile attempt to seize the town of Norfolk, the British landed at Old Point Comfort and used the lighthouse tower as an observation post. From there they invaded and captured Hampton on June 25, 1813. Afterwards, they routed an American forceat Bladensburg before marching on tocapture and burnWashington, D.C. in retaliation for theAmerican destruction of York.[17]
Construction onFort Monroe began in 1819 and it was first garrisoned in 1823, though construction continued for nearly 25 years afterwards.[18] Initially named Fortress Monroe, it was officially renamed as a fort in 1832, though it has often been called by the original name ever since.[19] During theMarquis de LaFayette's famoustrip to the United States in 1824-1825, the Marquis admired the Old Point Comfort stronghold which had been designed by French born engineerSimon Bernard.[20]
In the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries Old Point Comfort served as the terminus and connection point for passenger and express freight ships connecting cities of Chesapeake Bay by both water and rail routes with Boston, New York and along the southeastern coast.[21][22] A steamship service example was the Baltimore Steamship Packet Company's Old Bay Line. Old Point Comfort was a stop on a Norfolk-Old Point Comfort-Baltimore circuit.[23]
Rail lines, including theNew York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad, provided rail car through ferry service from Old Point Comfort toCape Charles on theEastern Shore of Virginia, across theChesapeake Bay. At Cape Charles, land route connections to points north could be made with the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad (and its successor parent company, thePennsylvania Railroad) on the eastern peninsula to Wilmington, Delaware and Philadelphia.[21][24] The Zero Mile Post for theChesapeake and Ohio Railway is also here, and represents the end of the line from which all main line distances were measured between Fort Monroe and Cincinnati.[25] The station at Fort Monroe closed in 1939.[26] And the Zero Mile Post was shifted north to Phoebus.[27]
For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, Old Point Comfort was a summer and winter resort in the town ofPhoebus inElizabeth City County. Old Point Comfort is the location of historicFort Monroe,The Chamberlin, and theOld Point Comfort Light.[28]
The pier that was used by government vessels as well as being a routine stopping point for commercial shipping lines was government owned. In 1952 the residents of both the town and county voted to be consolidated with the independent city of Hampton.[28]
On November 12, 1959, the Army issued notice it was closing the pier and that it would be removed. On January 2, 1960, the Army announced the pier would be open only "at your own risk" to visitors from shore, including guests of theChamberlin Hotel that overlooked the pier, but closed to boat traffic and travelers. Steamship travel had declined after World War II and the last line using the Old Point Comfort stop was theBaltimore Steam Packet Company operating as the Old Bay Line. The line'sCity of Richmond made the last stop at the pier December 30, 1959. Despite a court injunction based on the terms under which Virginia ceded the land to the Federal Government in 1821 the pier was destroyed after federal courts overruled the injunction. The pier was demolished by the end of May 1961.[29]
Old Point Comfort was the site in 1909 whereSouthern Baptists andNorthern Baptists inaugurated negotiations toward a comity agreement.[30][31]
It was near Old Point Comfort that theUSS Missouri (BB-63), then the only U.S. battleship in commission, was proceeding seaward on a training mission from Hampton Roads early on January 17, 1950, when she ran aground 1.6 miles (3.0 km) fromThimble Shoal Light,(near Old Point Comfort. She hit shoal water a distance of three ship-lengths from the main channel. Lifted some seven feet above waterline, she stuck hard and fast. With the aid of tugboats, pontoons, and an incoming tide, she was refloated on 1 February 1950 and repaired.[32]
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Old Point Comfort".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 74.| International | |
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37°00′02″N76°18′41″W / 37.00056°N 76.31139°W /37.00056; -76.31139
