Fort Monroe

Fort Monroe (also known as Fortress Monroe) is a Hampton, Virginia, military installation located at Old Point Comfort, which is on the tip of the Virginia Peninsula. Along with Fort Calhoun, later renamed Fort Wool, it guarded approach by sea of the navigational shipping channel between the Chesapeake Bay and the entrance to the harbor of Hampton Roads, which itself is formed by the confluence of the Elizabeth River, the Nansemond River, and the James River, the longest in Virginia. During the initial exploration by the mission headed by Captain Christopher Newport in the earliest days of the Colony of Virginia, the site was identified as a strategic defensive location. In May of 1607, they established the first permanent English settlement in the present-day United States about 25 miles further inland from the Bay along the James River at Jamestown.