on the opposite side of Hampton Roads where they found a channel “which put us in good comfort. Therefore we named that point of land Cape Comfort (present Old Point Comfort).” Upon the invitation of some friendly Indians to come ashore to their town called by them Kecoughtan, Captain John Smith says: “Wee coasted to their town running over a river running into the main where these savages swam over with their bowes and arrows in their mouths.” “Kecoughtan,” continues the doughty Captain, “has a convenient harbor for fisheries, boats or small boats, that so conveniently turneth itself into Bayes and Creeks that make that place very pleasant to inhabit, their cornfields being girded thereon as peninsulars.” “The aboundance of fish, fowls, and deer” was noted.
To such a goodly place some of the colonists returned from Jamestown, in 1610, making a permanent settlement at Kecoughtan. Thus it is that the present Hampton occupying a place near the site of the Indian village is the oldest English settlement in the United States in continuous existence. Hampton may well be proud of this priority and others. The Church came with the colonists and the first church was probably erected in Kecoughtan in 1620. The walls of the present St. John’s Church have stood since 1728. The three old pieces of communion silver now in use in St. John’s Church bear the “hallmark” of 1618. This plate has been in use in America longer than any English Church plate now known to be in existence. These pieces “were given by Miss Mary Robinson of London to a church endowed by her in Smith’s hundred in Virginia which lay in the point between the Chickahominy and the James rivers. This church was endowed especially with the hope of converting the Indians; but the settlement was almost destroyed by them in the great massacre of 1622. At this time these vessels were carried by Governor Yeardley to Jamestown. Years afterwards they were given to the parish of Elizabeth City.” The present Syms-Eaton School is a continuation of the oldest free school in America, there having been no break in its history since its establishment in 1634, by Benj. Syms and Thos. Eaton.
We, of Virginia, are justly proud that no matter what services were rendered in raising the superstructure of our
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