Lavinia Wilson Hagen

Quick Facts

Significance:

Freedom Seeker on the Planter

Place of Birth:

Possibly Charleston

Date of Birth:

Approximately 1848

Place of Death:

Unknown

Date of Death:

After 1898

Lavinia Wilson born around 1848, probably in the area around Charleston, South Carolina. By the outbreak of the Civil War, she was enslaved by an unknown Charleston banker. But the first time she appeared in the historical record by name was on June 17, 1862, when the New York Tribune posted a list of the freedom seekers who had been on board the Planter as it broke out of the Charleston Harbor on May 12-13, 1862. Towards the bottom of the list was the name “Levina Wilson” with no other details given.  

A month later, in August 1862, Admiral Samuel DuPont issued a report listing the people on board the Planter and what their share of the prize money should be. He listed two women only by first name – Annie and Lavinia – and that their share was $100 each. DuPont’s note was that these women were “unprotected women of the party.” In the popular telling of the story of the Planter Lavinia and Annie are often grouped together or assumed to be wives or girlfriends of the crew. It is also possible, given her age of around 14 at the time, that she was friends with Robert Smalls’s stepdaughter Clara who was on the boat that night.  

It's likely that Lavinia, along with Annie White, Hannah Smalls and her children, and Susan Smalls with her child, all rode to freedom in the hold of the Planter while the men worked above decks. It was a terrifying ordeal. Dark. Cramped. They knew that at any moment the ship could come under fire and if they were to take a hit and start to sink, the hold was a certain death trap. It was a relief when they pulled up alongside a US Naval vessel and were hoisted aboard to freedom.  

But once again, Lavinia disappeared from the historical record, at least for a time. On April 9, 1864 the Free South, the newspaper for Civil War era Beaufort listed a handful of wedding announcements. Among them was Lavinia Wilson’s: 

"April 7 at the house of Capt. Robert Smalls, by Rev. M. French, Corporal Frank Nickison, 33rd U.S.I. to Miss Lavinia Wilson. Capt. Smalls who took the Planter and her passengers safely out of Charleston, now owns the house of his former master, and where he himself was born. The bride, his adopted daughter and formerly the slave of the cashier of a Charleston Bank, escaped in the Planter. The different rooms of the house were tastefully decorated and illuminated. A table was furnished bountifully and in a style creditable to any of the chivalry. There was a representation of some of the “first families” of the freedmen, some of whom were kindred to the very elite of South Carolina. The Governor [Rufus Saxton] with his lady and several members of his staff were present." 

As it turns out, Lavinia had remained close with Robert Smalls. The newspaper notes that he had even adopted her. The wedding was officiated by Reverend Mansfield French, who was one of the principal leaders of the Port Royal Experiment and was attended by a vast array of military leadership from the Department of the South. The newspaper did get her husband’s name wrong. His actual name was Frank Hagens, not Nickison. Frank Hagens was a boatman from Jacksonville, Florida, who was one of the many men to emancipate themselves from the city by taking a boat to freedom, and venturing to Camp Saxton, where they joined the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later redesignated the 33rd USCT. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson would only permit women in the camp if they were wives or family, and weddings were a frequent occurrence for the regiment. But none got the attention that Frank Hagens did when he married a Planter freedom seeker and Robert Smalls’ adoptive daughter, Lavinia Wilson.  

But much of the rest of their life disappeared into historical obscurity. According to a pension affidavit in the late 1880s, Frank worked as a boatman and stevedore around Jacksonville after the war, but by the 1880s was back in the Beaufort area. A Lavinia Higgins appears in the 1870 census living with another family in the same neighborhood as Robert Smalls. So, it’s possible that much of their marriage was spent apart. As Frank got older his health began to fail. In addition, he struggled with alcoholism, and he died in 1890, and is buried at Beaufort National Cemetery. Lavinia and Frank had no children. 

A few years later, Lavinia applied for a widow’s pension based on her husband’s service. She listed her residence as being at Lucy Creek, which is on the northeast end of Ladies Island. She indicated she had only recently moved there from Coosaw Island and had moved in with a man named Sam Mitchell. And then the trouble began. Neighbors began whispering that that Lavinia Hagens and Sam Mitchell were running a brothel. They reported that they kept young girls upstairs and that men could be seen coming and going all the time. Complicating the issue was that their neighbors alleged that Lavinia and Sam were living together as man and wife and had been doing so since before Frank died.  

The pension board began to investigate Lavinia for pension fraud. If she had left her husband before he died and was “living as man and wife” with another man, she was ineligible for a widow’s pension. The allegations of prostitution did not help. In the pension application packet, the investigators noted that Lavinia’s reputation and trustworthiness was “bad.” Lavinia denied the allegations, claiming that her husband had been a hard drinker but that she had not left him. And she vehemently denied the prostitution allegations. The pension board did not believe her and in 1898 they revoked her pension, leaving her destitute and penniless.  

So much of Lavinia’s life is unknown. She basically only appeared in the historical record three times: when she was on the Planter, when she got married, and then nearly 50 years later when she was fighting to keep her pension. What role did Robert Smalls play in her life after her marriage? Had they had a falling out or had he just lost track of her in the subsequent years? Like many on board the Planter, Lavinia Wilson Hagens had a brush with fame that brought her freedom, but then a lifetime of struggle and mystery.  

Sources

The New York Tribune June 17, 1862 
The Free South, April 9, 1864 
Approved Pension File for Lavinia Hagens, Widow of Frank Haggens, 33rd USCT. Available at the National Archives at https://catalog.archives.gov/id/313298918