Page 318 - PGM Compendium

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Of
M⸫W⸫ Daniel Bagley

1861-1862

The Rev. Daniel Bagley, our 4th Most Worshipful
Grand Master (1861 – 1862), was a Methodist
preacher who traveled west in covered wagons
with his family in 1852 as part of the Bethel Party.
This wagon train included several individuals,
such as Dexter Horton and Thomas Mercer, who
would also have a profound influence on the
growth of Seattle. Along with his wife, Susannah
Whipple Bagley, and son, Clarence Bagley, he
arrived in Seattle in October 1860.

Born on September 7, 1818, in Crawford County,
Pennsylvania. Bagley worked on his father's farm
clearing the land and doing chores. In 1840, he
married Massachusetts-raised Susannah Rogers Whipple. Their honeymoon was spent moving to
new land on the prairie of Illinois. After becoming a Methodist minister in 1842, he traveled the
state of Illinois as a circuit preacher.

In 1865, Daniel Bagley established what became known as Seattle's "Brown Church" at the
northwest corner of 2nd Avenue and Madison Street. According to his son, the Brown Church's
Sunday School "had become the largest in the territory with 171 officers, teachers, and pupils."
Daniel also taught at the school, his son Clarence substituting for his father in the classroom on
occasion.

Religious duties did not interfere with Bagley's secular interests. Besides preaching he became a
key advocate for the Territorial University (now known as the University of Washington) and its
location in Seattle. Bagley was elected president of the university's board of commissioners,
becoming in effect the school's first guiding spirit. He asked his friend, Asa Shinn Mercer, to serve
as the school's first acting president – at no salary. In 1894, when the new university grounds were
established in North Seattle, and the Denny Hall cornerstone was laid, Bagley spoke movingly at
the ceremonies about the university's early days. A plaque rests today at the University Street
entrance of the Olympic-Four Seasons Hotel attesting to the efforts of Arthur Denny and Daniel
Bagley to build a territorial university on that site.

In later life, Rev. Bagley undertook the management of what became known as the Newcastle Coal