Samuel Stagg

Samuel Wells Stagg (1897?-1956?) was a Methodist missionary who traveled to the Philippines as the "Special Field Scout Commissioner" of the Boy Scouts of America to assist in organizing the BSA Manila Council which was set up on 5 October 1923 through the initiative of the Rotary Club of Manila, with Stagg as one of the 21 Charter Members.^[1]

Biography

Stagg graduated from Turlock High School in 1915 and the University of Southern California, marrying Mary Boyd "Mother" Stagg, in 1917.^[2] He moved to Manila, Philippine Islands in 1923, and became the pastor of the Central Church on San Luis Street (now Kalaw Avenue, Malate, Manila), affiliated with the General Conference of the Methodist Church of America. In 1933, Stagg and other church members left the Central Church and the GCMCA, and formed the Cosmopolitan Student Church (now the Cosmopolitan Church) and the General Conference of the Methodist Church of the Philippines.^[3]

The Philippines Free Press, July 2, 1938, reports that Rev. Samuel Stagg defended President Manuel L. Quezon's veto of a Catholic-supported Commonwealth Assembly bill to provide religious instruction in public schools.^[4]

Second World War

Just before the Second World War, Samuel Stagg was recruited into U.S. Navy intelligence; none of his work in this job, however, has come to light. His wife Mary then took over as pastor of the Cosmopolitan Church, becoming the first female ordained a Protestant minister in the Philippines.^[5] Mary and members of the church were active in humanitarian relief work. Their welfare activities also extended into helping displaced persons, fugitives from the Japanese (Chinese business and community leaders), and resistance fighters.

In January 1944, Mary and a number of church members were incarcerated, interrogated, and tortured at Fort Santiago in Manila by Japanese troops. Samuel and Mary's son Sam was imprisoned first at Fort Santiago, where he too was treated as a spy then at the Universidad de Santo Tomás,^[6] Manila. He was the only prisoner at STIC to gain weight upon transfer. On 25 or 28 August 1944, paediatrician Dr. Hawthorne Darby of the (Methodist) Immanuel Cooperative Hospital (Tondo, Manila), Helen Jonaline Wilk, Mary Boyd Stagg, Blanche Walker Jurika (mother-in-law of Charles Thomas "Chick" Parsons), and others were taken by the Kempeitai to the Cementerio del Norte where they were beheaded and buried.^[7][8] In 1956 Darby, Wilk, and Mary Stagg were posthumously conferred the Philippine Legion of Honor, and were also awarded the Medal of Freedom by the United States government. Their remains have been exhumed and re-interred at Cosmopolitan Church.

Later life

Samuel Stagg worked as a farmer, educator, and writer of the Philippines Free Press under the nom de plume Jungle Philosopher. He was married a second time to Martha, a Filipina with whom he had a child. Stage died of a heart attack in Palawan in 1956.

Scouting legacy

Both sons, Lionel Paul Stagg and Samuel Boyd Stagg were active Scouts in Manila. Lionel made Life Scout before leaving to attend college in the United States. Samuel had completed the work for Eagle Scout, but it was interrupted by war when all records lost.

Mary Stagg founded the Campfire Girls (sister organization of the Boy Scouts of America) in the Philippines. In 1925, the Camp Fire Girls of Manila received the Grace Carley Medal.

Bibliography

• Stagg, Samuel Wells, Home Lessons in Religion, 1922. Reprinted 2009 by General Books. ISBN 1151395013. ISBN 9781151395016.
• Stagg, Samuel Wells, How to Promote Home Religion: the working program of one church, Abingdon Press, 1922.
• Stagg, Samuel Wells, The Ideal Woman and Other Themes, Philippines: the author, 1928.
• Stagg, Samuel Wells, Teodoro R. Yangco: leading Filipino philanthropist and grand old man of commerce, Manila: University of the Philippines Press, 1934. Digitised Nov 2006, University of Michigan.
• Stagg, Samuel Wells & James Drought, The Stagg-Drought Debate as Conducted by the Tribune, Methodist Publishing House, 1929.
• Stagg, Samuel Wells & Mary Boyd Stagg, Home Lessons In Religion, A Manual for Mothers, Volume 2, Abingdon Press, 1922. Reprinted 2009, 2010 (Kessinger Publishing), 2011 (Nabu Press). ISBN 116650736X. ISBN 9781166507367.
• Stagg, Samuel Wells & Mary Boyd Stagg, Home Lessons In Religion, A Manual for Mothers, Volume 3: The six- and seven-year old, Cincinnati: Abingdon Press, 1924.
• Webb, Mary, Not My Will: a Christian martyr in the Philippines, Pasig, Philippines: Anvil Publishing, 1997. ISBN 971-27-0560-9. ISBN 978-9712705601.

References

1. Diamond Jubilee Yearbook, Manila: Boy Scouts of the Philippines, 1996, p 44.
2. Salonga, Jovito, Journey of Struggle and Hope, 2001.
3. Unfortunately, the Cosmopolitan Church has no library usable for research.
4. The Philippines Free Press: Meanwhile, "fighting" Rev. Samuel W. Stagg, Protestant pastor, defended the chief executive in a radio speech over KZIB, and at the same time accused the Catholic hierarchy of being "the sworn enemy of all democracy." He lauded the President for his "great courage in taking issues with the hierarchy in defense of the hard-won liberties of the Filipino people."
5. Ramos, Fidel, "A Heroic Church" in The Manila Bulletin, April 11, 2009.
6. The oldest operating university in the Philippines, founded 1611; older than Harvard University, founded 1636
8. "Blanche was dead, executed in late August, 1944, hands tied behind her, blindfolded and kneeling over a newly-dug trench somewhere in Manila’s North Cemetery, killed with over two dozen other civilians accused of various acts of conspiracy by the Japanese. For Blanche and the few other American women, death was by beheading by Samurai sword. For the men, it had been a single shot to the back of the head."