Fagins, Isaac, 1772 - 1832

Isaac Fagins was born in Stonington, Connecticut in 1772. While little is known of his youth, in the winter of 1799, at the age of 27, he obtained a Seaman’s Protection Certificate.  Although he is not counted among the crew on any vessels leaving from the nearby port of New London, it is likely he engaged in the maritime trade. Yet, if he were at sea then, he was back on land the following year when he was enumerated in the Federal Census as being the head of a household in Stonington (possibly North Stonington). 

Over the course of the next decade, Isaac had started a family.  In the 1810 Federal Census, he was recorded as having five in his household and was living on or adjacent to the Eastern Pequot Reservation as neighbors with the families of Samuel Shelly, Cyrus Shelly, Bartlett Shelly, Rachel Poheage, Hannah Poheage, Elizabeth Tikens, Moses Skeesucks, Amos Robinson, Mary Johnson, and Johannah Shantup. 

When a committee commissioned by Connecticut authorities came to the Eastern Pequot reservation in May of 1815, Isaac Fagins, then 42 years old, was counted as living there in a household consisting of two adults and five children. Within their household, there was one individual that was also listed among the town’s poor.  Whether this individual was Isaac Fagins or not is unknown.  

Fagins next appeared in the records of the State appointed overseer of the Eastern Pequot Tribe for a nine-year period beginning in early August 1823.  In addition to being credited by the overseer for his portion of the rent of tribal lands, he received from local farmers and merchants, staple products such as corn, potatoes, meal, molasses, and pork, as well as cash advances.  Fagins and his family maintained a small house on the reservation and, while it is unclear if he, like his neighbor Tyra Apes Nedson, had an apple orchard, he did have a farmstead in which he planted, among other things, corn.  He also owned at least one pig.

In October of 1832, tribal funds were debited for the purchase of grave clothes for Isaac Fagins.  In addition, the overseer rented a horse and wagon to pick up Fagins’ coffin from Milltown (downtown North Stonington) and to carry him to his grave, ostensibly on the reservation.

Protection Certificates, Mystic Seaport http://library.mysticseaport.org/initiative/ProtectionDetail.cfm?id=3764... ; 1800 Federal Census, Stonington, CT; 1810 Federal Census, North Stonington, CT; Copy of the Appointment and Report of a Committee to Evaluate the State and Condition of Tribes in the State of Connecticut, IP 2.1.19,  1815.05.00.01; NLCC:PbS, Indians, Eastern Pequot.