Thomas Hampton's father, William, a wool merchant, sailed from England and appears on the 1618 passenger list of the Bona Novo.

[6] He used the U.S. military presence in New Orleans to suppress the 1811 German Coast uprising, a slave rebellion which he believed was a Spanish plot.

Hampton had a mansion, now known as the Hampton-Preston House, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in Columbia, South Carolina.

[7] In his anti-slavery compendium American Slavery As It Is, Theodore Weld cites a witness who heard him boasting that he killed some of his slaves for a nutritional experiment.

"[8] Wade Hampton I is interred in the churchyard at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia, South Carolina's capital city.