Hampton Virginia Real Estate Located on the southeastern tip of the Virginia peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton is the oldest continuously settled English community in the United States. As an Indian village called Kecoughtan, it had been visited by the first English colonists before they sailed up the James River to settle in Jamestown. The first free public schools in the United States were founded in Hampton by Benjamin Syms and Thomas Eaton and are commemorated in the Syms-Eaton Museum. Hampton is the site of Hampton University, established in 1868 to educate freed slaves, and Thomas Nelson Community College. St. John's Episcopal parish was founded in 1610, making it the oldest in the country. Today Hampton is a thriving city of over 141,000 residents. Major industries are NASA and high-tech firms, seafood processing, military and tourism. In 1992, the Virginia Air and Space Center opened on the downtown waterfront with almost 300,000 visitors a year coming through its doors. The city's logo and slogan - Hampton, America's First - identifies the city as home to many firsts such as America's first continuous English-speaking settlement; America's first free public education; and America's first training ground for the astronauts and many, many more.