Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

For those items on microfilm, the original will not be served and patron must use the microfilm.

Preferred Citation

Hampton (Va.) Records, 1659-1955. Local government records collection, Hampton (City) Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Va. 23219.

Acquisition Information

This item came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Hampton under the accession number 50572.

Historical Information

Elizabeth City County (extinct) was named for Elizabeth, daughter of James I, and was one of the eight shires established in 1634. It became extinct in 1952, when it was incorporated into the city of Hampton, which was the county seat.

Hampton was located in Elizabeth City County, which is now extinct. It takes its name from the Hampton Creek, earlier called Southampton River in honor of the earl of Southampton, an important figure in the Virginia Company of London. An Indian village stood on the site in 1607, when John Smith visited the area. The English established a village there in 1601 and a trading post in 1630. Hampton was established by an act of assembly in 1680 and was designated as a port in 1708. It was first incorporated as a town in 1849, then it was incorporated again in 1852, but the act of incorporation was repealed in 1860. The General Assembly again incorporated the town of Hampton in 1887, and it became a city by court order in 1908. It was greatly enlarged in 1952 by a merger with Elizabeth City County and the town of Phoebus; the county and town thereby became extinct.

The Junior Order of United American Mechanics was founded in 1853 as a fraternal and political secret society. Insurance was added later. If the order is still extant, it is probably only at a local lodge level. The full title of the governing body was the National Council of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics of the United States of North America, Inc. Founded as the Union of Workers in Philadelphia in 1845 by a group of working men, their aims were to stop immigration, especially Catholic immigration, and to provide the usual mid-19th-century benefits of a sick fund and a funeral fund. Members were required to undertake efforts to publicize and campaign against the hiring of cheap foreign labor and to patronize only "American" businesses. It changed its name to the Order of United American Mechanics shortly after its foundation. Membership was open only to native-born white American men who professed belief in a supreme being, supported the separation of church and state, and were not engaged in the liquor trade. In 1853, the O.U.A.M. authorized a junior lodge, to be called the J.O.U.A.M. The J.O.U.A.M. soon outgrew the parent organization, which it absorbed some time after declaring its independence from them in 1885. Eventually the organization also admitted women in their own right, though there was also a short-lived women's auxiliary, which was founded in 1875. After the 1840s and 1850s, which were the high point of xenophobic nativist parties in the United States, the J.O.U.A.M. settled down more and more into a conventional fraternal benefit society. In addition to very modest fraternal benefits and dues, the J.O.U.A.M. also operated a legal reserve insurance department, which had been in operation since 1899.

Records were burned or destroyed during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Additional records were burned in Richmond on 3 April 1865, where they had been moved for safekeeping during the Civil War. A few pre-Civil War volumes such as deed books, will books, and order books exist.

Scope and Content

Hampton (Va.) Records, 1659-1955, consist of 21 volumes of Hampton and Elizabeth City County records including court minutes and orders, deed and will books, naturalization petitions, World War II induction and discharge records, record of those adjudged insane, convict register, 1880 census, and voter registration; and loose records including plats, chancery causes, Democratic Executive Committee of Elizabeth City County records, World War I History Commission reports and military service records, Board of Supervisor records including Jamestown Exposition correspondence, certificates for allowance for Confederate reunion attendees, and a memorial to the General Assembly inquiring into taxation status of Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, bonds/commissions/oaths, clerk's correspondence, judgments, fiduciary records, deeds, wills, marriage records, rosters of Confederate pensioners, George Booker's application for a federal pardon, organization records for the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, road and bridge records, tax and fiscal records, public buildings and grounds records including specifications for the 1876 courthouse, a copy of an Act to provide a new charter for the town of Hampton, and correspondence related to potential post office changes in Hampton and Phoebus in 1952.

Related Material

See the Chancery Records Index found on the Library of Virginia web site for the chancery records of other Virginia localities.

See the Lost Records Localities Digital Collection available at Virginia Memory.

For more information and a listing of lost records localities see Lost Records research note .

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Democratic Party (Va.)
• Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (Va.)
• Jamestown Ter-centennial Exposition (1907)
• Junior Order United American Mechanics Peninsula Council no. 125 (Hampton, Va.)

Subjects:

• African American universities and colleges -- Virginia.
• Exhibitions. -- Virginia.
• Friendly societies -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Public buildings. -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Public records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Reunions.
• Veterans -- Confederate States of America.

Geographical Names:

• Elizabeth City County (Va.) -- History.
• Hampton (Va.) -- History.
• Hampton (Va.) -- Politics and government.
• Virginia -- Politics -- 20th century.

Genre and Form Terms:

• Census records -- Virginia -- Elizabeth City County.
• Civil court records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Deeds -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Fiduciary records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Letters (correspondence) -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Local government records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Marriage records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Military records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Minute books -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Naturalization records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Order books -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Pardons -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Plats (land) -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Plats (maps) -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Road and bridge records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Tax and fiscal records -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Voters' lists -- Virginia -- Hampton.
• Wills -- Virginia -- Hampton.

Adjunct Descriptive Data