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 HAMPSTEAD are Portsmouth, Southampton, and Winches- ter. Aldershott, on the borders of Surrey, has become a place of some note from the forma- tion of a military station there. HAMPSTEAD, a suburb of London, in Middle- sex, situated on a range of hills, 4 m. N. W. of the city; pop. in 1871, 32,281. It has a pleasant and healthy situation. In former times Hampstead was renowned for its mineral springs, and at present it is one of the most popular resorts of Londoners. Hampstead ' heath, on the. summit of the principal hill, is crowded with people on fine days, and particu- larly on Sunday, when excursions on donkeys are made and picnic parties assemble there. The village proper is irregularly built, but in its vicinity are fine villas, and there are many schools. Hampstead has always been a favor- ite resort of poets, including Pope and Byron. The upper Flask inn on Hampstead heath, once the place of meeting of the Kit-cat club, of which Addison and Steele were members, is now a private residence. At the present day there are many famous taverns, especially Jack Straw's, which was much frequented by Dickens and his friends. HAMPTON, a town and the county seat of Elizabeth City co., Virginia, on the W. bank of Hampton river, a small inlet of Hampton roads, about 2| m. from Fortress Monroe, and 75 m. S. E. of Richmond; pop. in 1870, 2,300, of whom 1,840 were colored. Before the civil war it was a fashionable watering place. It was burned by the confederates under Gen. Magruder in August, 1861, but is now steadily recovering. It is the seat of the Hampton normal and agricultural institute, designed es- pecially to train colored youth as teachers of their own race, by giving an English and an in- dustrial education, while affording students an opportunity to defray a portion of their expenses by labor. The grounds, comprising a farm of 125 acres bordering on the river ^ m. below the vil- lage, were purchased by the American missionary association in 1867, at the instance of Gen. S. C. Armstrong, then su- perintendent of a depart- ment of the freedmen's bureau at Hampton, and since principal of the in- stitute. It was incor- porated in 1870, and in 1872 the state awarded to it one third ($95,000) of the proceeds of the congressional land grant for the support of an agricultural and mechanical college, with a por- tion of which 72 acres more of land have been purchased. The hall containing the school 388 VOL. viii. 28 HAMPTON 431 rooms, printing office, and boys' dormitories, erected in 1870, chiefly by the aid of the freed- men's bureau, is in the form of a Greek cross, three stories high and 110 ft. long by 85 ft. wide, and was constructed, partly by the labor of the students, of brick made on the farm. The cor- ner stone of another hall, for the girls' dormi- tories, chapel, &c., to be 190 ft. in front and 40 ft. wide, with a wing running 100 ft. to the rear, was laid in 1873. About 150 acres of the farm are under cultivation by the boys. Tu- ition and room rent are free. The printing office was opened in November, 1871, and has been successfully operated by the students. The first number of the " Southern Workman," a monthly illustrated periodical devoted to the industrial interests of the freedmen, was issued on Jan. 1, 1872. The girls find employment in the laundry and kitchen, and in various kinds of needlework. The number of instructors in 1873-'4 was 18; of students, 226, of whom 149 were males and 77 females. The course is three years. The Butler school house, be- longing to the* institute, in which was organ- ized one of the earliest of the freedmen's schools, is used by the county as a free school, and contains about 200 pupils. Adjacent to the grounds is the national cemetery, contain- ing a chapel, a handsome granite monument, and the graves of 5,123 Union soldiers; and near by is the national home for disabled sol- diers, once a flourishing female seminary, which in 1872 provided for 538 veterans at an ex- pense of $62,923 17. HAMPTON, a parish of Middlesex, England, 12 m. W. S. W. of London, on the N. bank of the Thames, near its junction with the Mole ; pop. in 1871, 6,122. In the vicinity is the pal- ace of Hampton Court, once a favorite resi- Hampton Court. dence of the Tudors and the Stuarts, and now with its gardens a very popular holiday resort of the Londoners. The gardens in their pres-