Name: William Hampton Sr.
Birth: May 1592 Twickenham, Middlesex, England
Death:  ~ 1652 Hampfield, Gloucester Co., VA

Father: Laurence Hampton
Mother: Joan

Spouse: Joan
Birth: ~!596 Berkshire, England
Death:

Children:  
Grace Hampton (~1619 - )
William Hampton Jr.
Elizabeth Hampton (~1621 - )
Thomas Hampton (1623 - ~ 1690)

From Adventurers of Purse and Person Virginia 1607-1624/5: Families G-p, 4th ed. edited by John Frederick Dorman , Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 2010, page 247

WILLIAM HAMPTON, son of Laurence Hampton, Sr., of Twickenham, Middlesex, England, was baptized in that parish 28 May 1592. He arrived in Virginia in the Bona Nova in 1620 and his wife Joane arrived the next year in the Abigail. They were enumerated in the census, 1623/4, at Buck Roe and were twice listed in the muster, 1624/5, at Elizabeth City, once by themselves, his age being given as 34, and again in the must of Edward Waters were his age was given as 40 and hers as 25. The will of Lawrence Hampton of London, tailor, 9 Nov 1627-12 Feb. 1627/8, left Ð10 to his brotherWilliam Hampton, "to be paid unto him within twelve months after his return from Virginia in the partsbeyond the seas," and if he died before his return from Virginia gave that sum to his sister Philadelphia.

On 10 December 1627, William Hampton, planter of Elizabeth City County, leased for ten years a 50 acre tract at Buck Roe, bounded on the east by the creek parting the land from Point Comfort Island, and on 13 August 1634 leased for 100 years a 100 acre tract. Finally, 11 December 1640, he secured a patent for 550 acres in Elizabeth City County for the personal adventure of himself and Joane his wife and naming William Hampton, Grace Hampton, and Eliza. Hampton among the headrights.

By 25 March 1651 when he patented 700 acres on the east side of the easternmost river in Mockjack Bay, he had moved to the portion of Gloucester County which is now Mathews County. One of the headrights named in this patent is Philad. Hampton, possibly his sister. His will, now lost, was dated 5 Sept 1652, and divided his Gloucester County land between his sons William and Thomas.

From "The Hampton Family of the Southern States, 1568 -1916; being an account of the descendants of William Hampton of Hampfield, Gloucester County, Virginia" By Joseph Lyon Miller, M. D. we find that:

In August 1620, there sailed from England three vessels bound for the newly settled colony of Virginia with passengers sent out by the Virginia Company. The were: The Bono Nova, two hundred tons, Capt. John Hudleston, master, and one hundred and twenty passengers aboard; The Elizabeth, forty tons, and twenty passengers; and the Mayflower, one hundred and forty tons and a hundred passengers.

Under favorable circumstances of wind and wave they would reach their destination at Jamestown the later part of November. But none of them reached port at the time expected. The Bono Nova and the Elizabeth were “carried past Virginia by the current to the North.”  The Elizabeth went to Newfoundland and remained there until the spring of 1621 when she sailed for Virginia. The Bono Nova beat her way back as soon as she could and arrived there (Virginia) in the winter, probably January 1621. The Mayflower sailed on August 15th, but greatly buffeted by Old Neptune returned to port, and finally put to sea again on September 16th. After and adventurous voyage, in which she was carried north like her sister ships, she landed her passengers December 21st, 1620 on a rock that has ever since occupied a conspicuous place in American history.

The passengers carried by the Mayflower were a different type and religion to those on the Bono Nova and the Elizabeth, and were actuated by a different purpose in seeking a home in the new world. He the elements not taken a hand in this fateful voyage and the Mayflower landed the “pilgrims” at Jamestown instead of Plymouth Rock, affords a subject for considerable speculation as to what effect this would have had upon the history of this country, but not here and now.

The Bono Nova, which was one of the largest vessels of the “Virginia Fleete”, carried among her passengers on this voyage, on WILLIAM HAMPTON, aged thirty-four years, who came at his own expense. He is thought to have been a member of the Hampton family of Middlesex, but living in London at the time of the sailing.

Doubtless when he bid his wife, Joan, farewell on that far off August day, his last promise was that the Bono Nova should indeed bring good news on her return voyage in the spring, of him and that wonderful Virginia; and that she should make ready to follow him with their little son and daughters when again the ship set out to Virginia.

In this day of great floating palaces that pass from shore to shore of the broad Atlantic in less than a week, scarcely out of touch with land by wireless, it is difficult for us to imagine the forebodings and agony of that farewell which bore as heavily upon her who stayed behind knowing it would at best be six months before she had news, if ever, of her loved one, as upon him who braved the perils of a three months voyage in the crude little vessel to an unknown port.

Whether she tired in waiting, or whether it had been arranged that she should follow him the next spring even though she did not hear from him we know not, but in February 16221, just a month after the Bono Nova had beat her way back to Virginia, Joan Hampton and her children William, Elizabeth, and Grace Hampton set sail for Virginia in the ship Abigail a three hundred and fifty ton vessel under the command of  Capt. Samuel Each. This was one of the very largest and most comfortable of the Virginia vessels, so that their voyage was no doubt mucmore comfortable than that of William Hampton. They arrived at Jamestown in June 1621--- a happy time of the year to come to their new home.

As the Abigail was carried up the broad James by the perfume laden breeze, on that June day near three centuries ago, the flower starred banks of the river backed by the massed forest must indeed have been beautiful to the tired eyes of Joan Hampton and her little family, who for four months had looked out upon nothing but the mountainous waste of the Atlantic. What knew we of the hopes and fears that warred within her breast as she stood by the rail staring at this strange new world, while her impatient thoughts sped ahead of the lagging vessel to the rude log hamlet of Jamestown.

Would her husband’s face which she had not seen for ten months, be among those who crowded the shore when their vessel hove in sight; or would they tell her the Bono Novo had never come to port and there be no welcoming arms anywhere for her in this great silent country?

As we know, William Hampton was already in Virginia, and even though he may not have been at Jamestown when the Abigail dropped her anchor, yet the little family was soon reunited.

Had Joan Hampton waited for the next voyage of the Abigail she would have crossed with distinguished company, as Council of Virginia had arranged with Capt. Each upon his return from Virginia in 1621 to carry out to the colony Lady Wyatt, wife of the Governor and other important personages. This was done and she arrived at Jamestown about Christmas, 1622, but with a “desperate disease” aboard of which most of the unknown and Captain died en route or soon after landing.  This probably was what today we call Typhus or Ship Fever which added greatly to the other perils of a voyage in those days. A few months later Mr. George Sandys, Treasurer of the Colony, (who made a find metrical translation of the Ovid while living at Jamestown – the first poetry written in English on the American soil) wrote: “Such a pestilent fever rageth this winter amongst us; never knowne before in Virginia by the infected people that came over in the Abigail, and were poisoned with stinkeinge beer all falling sick and many dying, everywhere dispersing the contagion, and the forerunning Summer hath been also deadly unto us.”

Unused to the hot, malarious climate of Virginia, thousands of the English died in “the seasoning” before they became acclimated. In March 1621 there were 843 English persons in Virginia of whom 750 were acclimated. Between that date and the following March seventeen ships left England with 1580 persons for the colony, of whom 1183 perished on the way over or soon after landing, as there were but 1340 English men , women and children all told living in Virginia on that fatal Friday in March 1622 when the terrible Indian Massacre occurred which came near to exterminating the entire colony. Of the twelve hundred odd white inhabitants nearly on third perished, and doubtless all would have shared in the same fate but for the faithfulness of “Chanco”, a Christian Indian, who revealed the plot to his master a few hours before the time appointed for the Indians to strike. Thus enabling the residents of Jamestown and a few nearby settlements to be warned.

The Indians had been peaceably disposed toward the English so long that they were received by the settlers in their homes without suspicion; coming and going daily with fish or game to sell, or stopping to eat a meal with their “white brothers”. Taking advantage of this wily old Opechancanough, who had succeeded Powhaten as “Emperor” of the Virginia Indians, planned with the greatest secrecy that his warriors should fall upon every English settlement in Virginia from the frontier settlement at th Falling Creek Iron Works just below the present city of Richmond, to the little village of “Poynte Comfort” on the bad at exactly the same hour so that none could help the other. Mr. John Pery, Secretary of the Colony, in writing home of the massacre said: “Some of them were even sitting down at breakfast with our people at their tables; when at eight of the clock on the fatal Friday morning of March 22, 1622 for 140 miles up and down the river on both sides they fell upon the English and basely and barbourously murdered them, not sparing age, or sex, man, woman or child --- being at their several works in their houses in their fields, planting corn, and tobacco, gardening, making brick, building, sawing and other kinds of husbandry: so sudden in their cruel execution, that few or none discerned the weapon or blow that brought them their destruction.” According to our chronology this massacre too place on the 22nd of March 1623 as the new year began at that time on March 25th. A year later a census of Va. was taken and sent back to England.

Whether William Hampton and his family were still in Jamestown, or at one of the other settlements that was able to beat off the savages with the loss of but a part of their pitifully small numbers, we do not know, but in the “Musters of the Livinge and Dead in Virginia” taken after the massacre, they appear among those living in “Elizabeth Cittie”.

This muster shows that William Hampton came to Virginia in the Bono Nova in 1620 at which time he was about thirty four years of age, and that his wife Joan Hampton came over in the Abigail in 1621 at which time she was 25 years of age. The children are not mentioned in the muster, but in a grant of land in1640 it is shown that they cam over with their mother.

After the muster of 1624 the Hamptons drop out of sight until December, 10,1627 when William Hampton, Planter” had a lease from the Governor for 50 acres of land in Elizabeth City (Count). March 12, 1632he received an additional fifty acres, and August 13, 1634 a patent for a hundred acres more.

Again the records are silent for six years as to the Hamptons, but doubtless they were very busy years for William Hampton and his servants in clearing and planting his land, and adding to the comforts of his rude long house. December 11, 1640, “William Hampton of the County of Elizabeth Cittie, Planter” received a  patent for five hundred and fifty acres of land situated in what later became Gloucester County, paying for the same “his honor and Services to his Sovereign Lord the King (Charles I), and the transportation charges, which he had paid, for the passage from England to Virginia for himself, his wife, Joan, their children, Willie, Elizabeth, and Grace Hampton, and six other persons who had to serve him for a number of years as indentured servants. This was what was called “Head Rights”, by which a man received from the government fifty acres of land for each person whose passage money he paid from England to Virginia, and who had to serve him for certain number of hers as his servant until the money was repaid, so that he was paid both by the government and by the person himself. A man could claim the grant for each member of his family whom he brought over the same as for strangers. Thus grew the system of “Indentured Servants” in Virginia, who after they had served the required time, to a large extent acquired land and servants of their own and composed the respectable middle class of Virginia of that day. Far from being recruited altogether from the jail birds and scum of the London slums, as some of our northern historians would have us believe, they were really for the most part drawn from the respectable laboring class of England, who had not the means to pay their passage to Virginia, but were desirous of coming in the hope of better in their condition after they had served their time in return for the transportation charges. There are numerous instances in the old records of men of breeding and education who not having the ready money for their passage came out to Virginia in this way, and later acquired considerable property and held positions of trust and honor in the colonial government.

. .  .

As we have seen, William Hampton acquired a very considerable estate in the land and servants and doubtless passed his last years in Virginia very happily and comfortably; “for what can bring more content to the man who has only his merits or small means to advance his fortune, than to tread and plant that ground he has purchased by the hazards of his life.” Ant let us hope that William and Joan Hampton lived to a good old age in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor.

His will was dated Sept. 5, 1652, but he may have lived for some years after that, and the loss of the Gloucester records prevents our getting the date of probate, and the other data it contained.

This page was prepared by Charles Hartley.