In the seventeenth century, Kecoughtan was the name of the settlement now known as
Hampton, Virginia. In the early twentieth century, it was also the name of a town nearby in
Elizabeth City County. It was annexed into the
City of Newport News in 1927.
Colonial and Native American Kecoughtan
Kecoughtan in
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
was originally named Kikotan (also spelled Kiccowtan, Kikowtan), the name of the
Algonquian Native Americans living there when colonists led by
Captain John Smith arrived in the
Hampton Roads area in 1607.
According to
William Strachey,
Chief Powhatan had slain the ''
weroance'' at Kecoughtan in 1597, appointing his own young son Pochins as successor there, while resettling some of the tribe at the
Piankatank 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 president
John Smith sent Captain Martin to forcibly take over the island inhabited by the
Nansemonds, 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 built
Fort Algernon at
Old Point Comfort beside their main village in October 1609. After the arrival of
Lord De La Warr, the colonists
seized the native village on July 9, 1610, by luring them out with a
tambourine player, then attacking them. The surviving Kecoughtans fled to merge with other groups in the Powhatan Paramount Chiefdom.
On the same date in 1610, the
Elizabeth City Parish was founded. The area and the parish has since been continuously occupied. Renamed
St. 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.
Kecoughtan became part of
Elizabeth River Shire in 1634, and
Elizabeth City County in 1637. In the 1690s, Kecoughtan became part of the newly incorporated Town of Hampton, which later became an
independent city. Elizabeth City County and its only incorporated town,
Phoebus, both agreed to a consolidation with Hampton in 1952, forming the current
City of Hampton.
Through Fort Algernon and the Kecoughtan settlement, Hampton can claim to be the oldest continually occupied English-speaking settlement in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, by virtue of Jamestown (which usually claims this distinction) having been abandoned for two days in June 1610, 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.
Town of Kecoughtan (20th century)
In an area immediately to the southwest of the original settlement, the
incorporated town of Kecoughtan was formed on January 1, 1916, within
Elizabeth City County. It was located between Salters Creek and Hampton Roads and was developed by the Newport News, Hampton, and Old Point Development Company. The major business located in the town was Elizabeth Buxton Hospital. It was served by Woodrow Wilson School and a town hall and firestation.
Eleven years later it was annexed by the independent city of
Newport News on January 1, 1927. At that time the town's population was 1,198 and the total length of its streets five miles. The hard surface roadway connecting the area to the city of
Hampton opened in 1910 and was named Kecoughtan Road for the town. It was incorporated into
US Route 60.
See also
*
Former counties, cities, and towns of Virginia
References
External links
William and Mary archaeological study of site of Kecoughtan
{{authority control
Archaeological sites in Virginia
Former municipalities in Virginia
Populated places in colonial Virginia
Lost Native American populated places in the United States
Geography of Hampton, Virginia
Powhatan Confederacy