HAMPTON ROADS

Fort Wool, strategically located at the mouth of Hampton Roads Harbor directly across from Fort Monroe, is the only moat-enclosed active duty military installation in the country. This is one historic site where getting there is definitely part of the fun, as the fort is accessible only by boat. Pleasure boats may moor at the Fort.

The 65-foot Miss Hampton II is moored at the picturesque Hampton Harbor right beside the visitor center, where tickets are purchased. The 2 ½ to 3-hour cruise includes (weather permitting) a tour of Fort Wool. It sails out on the Hampton River, past Blackbeard’s Point, where legend claims the pirate’s head was displayed on a post after his violent death in November 1718, off Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. Ocracoke legend claims that after the decapitation Blackbeard’s body swam around his adversary’s boat seven times looking for its head.

The cruise takes passengers along the coast of Old Point Comfort, named by Capt. John Smith because of the “great comfort” it brought his crew to discover a safe navigable channel for the passage of their ships. The point was the site of one of the earliest forts in America, built in 1609.

It was decided that companion forts would be built to guard the entrance to Hampton Roads. The War of 1812 and the British burning of the White House in Washington reinforced the idea that fortifications were needed to protect the East Coast and Gulf Coast. A panel in 1818 suggested building 26 forts from Maine to Florida and along the Gulf. Among them was a fort across from Point Comfort, to create crossfire to guard this significant harbor.

In 1819 construction was begun on Fort Monroe and Fort Wool. Lieut. Robert E. Lee, an Army engineer, was involved in supervising construction of both forts. Fort Monroe, completed in 1834, was the largest stone fort ever built in the United States. Before beginning work on Fort Wool an island had to be created on which to build. Workers needed to haul 40,000 to 50,000 perch (a cubic measure for stone) of stone to the mouth of the harbor before they could begin building Fort Wool. Stones were brought in from river beds and quarries. Cranes and rails were used to dump the stone into the water to create an island. Between 1819 to 1823, the workers managed to raise the island six feet above high water and construction work began. The plan for Fort Wool consisted of three tiers of casemates and a barbette tier ( 4 tiers designed to mount 232 guns). About half of the second casemate as well as one tier and a part of the second tier was completed before work stopped in 1830. The island was sinking at a rate of eight inches a year. Originally the fort was named Fort Calhoun (although informally it was called Castle Calhoun) after the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun.

Although incomplete, President Andrew Jackson was so taken with the island’s seclusion, he brought family and friends to the fort for a summer getaway in 1829, 1831, 1833 and 1835. Guests were housed in the officers’ quarters. Jackson entertained dignitaries here including the Prussian Ambassador. In 1842, President John Tyler sought the seclusion of the island to mourn the death of his wife.

Thousands of pounds of additional stones were added to the island and work resumed on the casemates in 1858. The onset of the Civil War halted construction. The fortification remained in Union hands throughout the conflict. The fort finally got 10 cannons in 1861, a small part of the 232 planned for the completed facility. The Union troops at Fort Wool fired on the Georgia battery occupying Sewell’s Point across the harbor in June 1861. The shots landed past the southerners’ position, but it was clear that the cannon would reach across the water. The following March, two new-fangled ships, the ironclads Monitor and Merrimack, met in Hampton Roads Harbor.

The Monitor was launched from a New York City shipyard on January 30, 1862. Six weeks later, on March 9, it encountered the CSS Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack. The Union had scuttled their wooden steam frigate to prevent it falling into Confederate hands, but the South was able to salvage the vessel and convert her into an ironclad. For four hours the ironclads lobbed cannon balls at each other’s hulls at point-blank range. When a Confederate shell exploded in the sight-hole of the Monitor, it temporarily blinded Capt. John Worden. The Monitor withdrew and so the South claimed victory. Neither side was a clear victor; the only decisive winner was the metal ship.

Lincoln visited Fort Wool in 1862. From this vantage point he supervised the unsuccessful invasion of Norfolk. (Later, Gen. Wool successfully captured Norfolk and Portsmouth but Lincoln was not on hand.) Secretary of War Stanton ordered Fort Calhoun’s name changed in order to honor Wool, rather than a southern secessionist.

In the early 1900s, the fort entered a new phase of construction. The walls were torn down and replaced with concrete fortifications to defend against new weapons. Eight of the casemates remained and the outside stone wall was incorporated into the new concrete structure. Six 3" rapid fire guns and six 6" disappearing guns were added. A third stage of construction took place in World War II, when battery No. 229 was added. On December 7, 1941 troops reoccupied the island but the fort never came under fire and the men never saw combat. Park rangers provide guided tours to all visitors, beginning with the pre-Civil War section of the fort, then moving through the World War II portion .

While aboard the Miss Hampton II you’ll be able to see the behemoths of modern warfare when you cruise past Norfolk Naval Base’s two-mile waterfront. This is the world’s largest naval installation (see selection). Onboard narrators will provide information on the aircraft carriers, guided missile cruisers, destroyers and nuclear powered submarines that you will see moored at the base.

Cruises are given aboard the Miss Hampton II . Reservations are recommended, so be sure and call ahead at (757) 733-9102 or 1-888-757-BOAT. Go to www.misshamptoncruises.com for additional information and discount tickets..

Directions: From I-64 take Exit 267, Hampton University and follow Routes 60/143 west-bound to old downtown Hampton. The excursion boat to Fort Wool departs from Hampton’s main dock near the visitor center. There is a parking garage at the dock.

Hampton University Museum

African American Heritage

On January 1, 1863 during the dark days of the War Between the States, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the enslaved people of the Confederacy. Under an oak on what is now the Hampton University campus, Lincoln’s Proclamation was read to the people of Hampton. Classes had been conducted near the oak tree since September 17, 1861. The teacher was Mary Peake, a free-born woman of color, who for years ignored statues forbidding the education of blacks. She started some of the first organized programs to teach both free and enslaved African Americans to read and write. The Emancipation Oak is a significant African American landmark. Five years after the Proclamation was issued, Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later University) was established to educate the newly freed African Americans.

Established the same year as the school, the Hampton University Museum is one of the oldest museums in the state. The African art collection, exhibited in the museum, is one of the first collections gathered by an African American, missionary-explorer, Dr. William H. Sheppard. There is also an extensive and historic Native American collection. Currently located on the waterfront overlooking the Hampton River and Hampton Roads Harbor, the museum is in the 1881 Academy Building, a National Historic Landmark (there are plans for a new, state-of-the-art museum building).

The African collection has about 3,500 objects from nearly 100 ethnic groups and cultures. Between 1890 and 1910, Sheppard, a Hampton alumnus, gathered 400 objects that became the nucleus of the museum’s collection. The material on display deserves close scrutiny since much of the work is exquisitely detailed with intricate bead patterns or carvings. Included are a battle-ax from Zaire, a Kuba royal belt, a Zulu bride costume, a Kenya headdress and an impressive hunter’s shirt that is from West Africa.

The Native American galleries offer a fascinating look at the artistic handiwork from more than 93 Native American tribes. It encompasses over 1,600 pieces that the museum has collected since 1878. That was the year the federal government began sending Native American students from the western reservations to Hampton. A significant number of Native Americans attended the school until 1923, when the federal government ended its support of this educational program. The museum’s outstanding collection resulted from this association with Native Americans from these diverse tribes.

In 1967, the Harmon Foundation presented a noted fine arts collection to the museum. Much of the museum’s 1,500-piece collection of paintings, graphics and sculpture was part of this gift. Harlem Renaissance-inspired artists are well-represented, including two of Jacob Lawrence’s earliest series. The museum also has nine paintings by Henry O. Tanner, perhaps the most renowned African American artist. His evocative canvas, The Banjo Lesson, done in 1893, is a favorite with visitors.

The Oceanic collection includes 18 cultures: Melanesian, Micronesian, Polynesian and Australian work. There is also a significant Asian collection as well as a growing Hampton University history collection.

The Hampton University Museum is open Monday through Friday 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. and weekends NOON to 4:00 P.M. While on the campus be sure to stop at the Booker T. Washington Memorial Garden with its imposing statue of Hampton’s most famous graduate as well as the William R. and Norma B. Harvey Library which has two imposing murals by Dr. John Biggers.

In 1879, a few miles from Hampton’s campus, university students built a tiny African-American missionary chapel, the only one in Virginia. Now a National Historic Landmark, the Little England Chapel has a permanent exhibit and video on the religious lives of post-Civil War African Americans. The chapel, at the corner of Kecoughton and Ivy Home roads, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.

Directions: Take I-64 east to Exit 267 (Hampton University, Downtown Hampton, Phoebus). Proceed straight on Tyler Street through the intersection to the second stop light. Turn left onto Emancipation Drive; go one block, turn right on Marshall Avenue and travel across campus to the waterfront. The museum is located at Marshall Avenue and Shore Road. There are signs for the museum once you exit I-64. From campus to reach the chapel, take Tyler Street to County Street. At the intersection turn left and travel over the Booker T. Washington Bridge. Continue straight on Settler’s Landing Road to the fifth stop light. Turn left onto Kecoughtan Road and travel approximately one mile to Ivy Home Road. The chapel is on the left on the corner of Ivy Home Road.

Virginia Air & Space Center and Hampton Roads History Center

"No, move your right arm down," shouts paddles* on an aircraft carrier (appearing on a video screen) in front of a visitor at the new Adventures in Flight gallery. The visitor is learning from this screen (showing the sailor on the deck side-by-side with the visitor's own image. showing him how to use paddles to help a plane land). Through software magic this interactive exhibit even tells the visitor when his signals are incorrect! See the full story of the exhibits at this extraordinary new gallery at the Virginia Air & Space Gallery in LATE NEWS. *PS. "Paddles" is aircraft slang for the office in charge of helping planes land. Don't miss Adventures in Flight - and bring the kids. We personally "flight tested it" and it's wonderful.

Looking Forward, Looking Back at jet speed

Since opening in April 1992 the Virginia Air & Space Center has been informing and entertaining visitors. The facility on the Hampton waterfront, the official visitor center for NASA Langley Research Center, is visually striking with its immense glassed exhibit space soaring skyward. It is a highly successful design that conveys a sense of space so appropriate for the museum’s themes.

To get the most out of your visit, start by watching the short video at the Orientation Theater. You’ll get a brief summary of the museum’s history and an overview of the exhibits. The self-guided tour begins in a large open space where an array of small models traces the evolution of the airplane from its earliest days. Full-size airplanes hang suspended from the ceiling. Many of the planes hanging in the enclosed space had to be brought in before the final walls were put in place.

The suspended planes include a prototype YF-16 Fighting Falcon like the Air Force precision Thunderbirds fly and a Chance Vought F4U-ID Corsair, a huge aircraft with a 38-foot wing span. Another exhibited aircraft is a F-4E Phantom II that saw combat in Vietnam. There is also a Langley Aerodrome, Schleiche ASW-12 Glider, the world’s largest paper airplane, and an applications technology Satellite 6 as well as eight other planes. These can be seen from several levels; you can even look down on them from a gantry that crosses high above the museum’s ground floor. The gantry also provides a birds-eye view of the Apollo 12 Command Module that has pride of place on the main floor.

On the ground floor is the Hampton Roads History Center and a 300-seat IMAX theater, with a giant five-story projection screen and 16,000 watts of wrap-around sound--both are entertaining and educational.

Hampton was an official Royal Port for the Virginia colony. A wharf exhibit focuses on the importance of trade and tobacco to the area. In colonial times, the Bunch of Grapes Tavern stood on the site of this museum. It was in this tavern that irate patriots gathered to discuss their unhappiness with English rule. An audiovisual program brings the statuary-customers to life so that you can hear a conversation that might have occurred in this tavern. Ship building was significant in this area, you’ll see exhibits detailing the struggle to create a navy and defend the shores against the British in the American Revolution and War of 1812. Hampton Roads is forever associated with the dueling ironclads and there is a full-size replica of the casement of the Merrimack (also called the Virginia). There is also a large scale portion of the Monitor. It surprises many visitors to discover that the Merrimack, at 275 feet in length, was more than twice the size of the space shuttle. Continuing the Hampton story, there are exhibits on the local watermen and on the influence of the navy in the area including replicas of carriers and models of aircraft carriers. This museum is hands-on and with a push of a button you can experience the sights and sounds of U.S. naval aviation.

The space gallery is on the second floor; at the exhibit entrance is a cradle with an infant dressed not in traditional bunting, but in a space suit. Over the cradle there is a quote from the “Father of Soviet Rocketry,” Konstantin Tsiolovsky: “Earth is the cradle of mankind, but we cannot live in the cradle forever.” Space research has been conducted at NASA Langley Research Center since 1917---early strides and future goals are encompassed in the gallery. Achievements are recognized with items like the moon rock, the Viking orbiter and lander and the space shuttle exhibit. Interactive displays let you play at being an “astronaut for a minute.” There is also a simulated space launch. Other topics covered include rockets, satellites, aerospace research exhibits and the role of space in science fiction. Level three has an observation gantry for an overview of the hanging exhibits and an observation deck for a panoramic view of the Hampton Harbor.

The center is open during the summer from Monday through Wednesday 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Thursday through Sunday until 7:00 P.M. Winter hours are Monday through Sunday 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Admission is charged to the exhibits and the IMAX performances. There are usually two IMAX movies shown on a five story-high screen; for additional information call (800) 296-0800. You should allow at least an hour to explore the museum and 45 minutes for an IMAX movie.

Directly across the street from the museum is the 1920 Hampton Carousel. This antique merry-go-round delights young and old with its colorfully painted horses and chariots. The 48 hand-carved horses are fine examples of a vanishing American folk art. The pavilion still has the original mirrors it had when it was delivered in 1921 to Hampton’s Buckroe Beach Amusement Park. When the park closed in 1985, the city purchased and restored the carousel. The carousel operates on a regular schedule from April through October.

Directions: Take I-64 east from the Richmond area to Exit 267, Settlers Landing Road. This will take you to downtown Hampton. The Virginia Air and Space Center is on the left. Parking is available across from the center.