Fagins, Charles, 1814 -

Charles Fagins was the son of Hannah Miller and, quite likely, Charles Fagins, Sr.  Records suggest that for at least part of his life he lived on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation.  In December of 1833 he was enumerated in a private census of tribal members living in what was then Groton, Connecticut.   Erastus Williams, having just concluded his tenure as state appointed overseer, described Charles Fagins as 19 years old and of mixed black-Indian ancestry. He was included with his siblings Joseph, Henry, Nancy, and Samuel.

Records of the state appointed overseer of the tribe, as well as other records of the New London County Court, indicate Charles Fagins was, at least as a young man, involved in everyday affairs of his community. In February of 1834 he was named as a witness or deponent in the case of State v. Lawrence in which fellow Pequot and peer, Amasa Lawrence, was charged with theft.  That same winter saw him chopping wood for several Pequot women, in particular Esther Dick, alias Esther Lawrence, and Betsy Meazon Wheeler. He also dug the graves for Royal Allen (June 16, 1838), and elders Phoebe Sunsamon  (December 18, 1838) and Anne Wampey ( December 3, 1836).

He appeared briefly in the accounts of James Geer of Preston, Connecticut. In late September 1836, Charles Fagins was charged the cost of one pine coffin that he bought at the request of his mother, Hannah Miller.  Similarly, on July 30, 1837 James Geer delivered to Charles Fagins a small coffin for the child of Caroline Wheeler.

This is not to say that Charles Fagins did not follow the sea like so many of his cohort group.  In May of 1832 and May of 1833 Charles Fagins was listed as a crew member on several voyages out of the busy Port of New London, Connecticut.  Whether he actually sailed with each crew is unclear, as several of the voyage departures and returns overlapped. What is known, is that these whaling voyages would have brought Charles Fagins far from his Mashantucket home to the South Atlantic Ocean.   A January 1868 land conveyance makes reference to the "Dwelling house commonly known as the Charles Fagins House" as being just shy of 500 feet from the northern boundary of the reservation.  

CHS, William Samuel Johnson Papers, III, 100: December 13, 1833 Letter from Erastus Williams to William T. Williams; NLCCR, February 1834, State v. Lawrence, Box 3, Folder 19; NLCC:PbS, Indians, Mashantucket Pequot;  CSL, Account book of James Geer 1834-1855, Vol.5; Crew Lists, Mystic Seaport; Ledyard Land Records, Vol. 3, pp.423-424.