Page 309 - 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 Mines
on the eastside of Lake Washington. He and others ran the Lake Washington Coal Company, which had
been organized in 1866. After 1885, he returned fulltime to his first profession, roaming from church to
church as visiting pastor in Ballard, Columbia City, Yesler Street, and South Park.

P a ge | 308