At age thirteen, he moved, this time to the opposite side of the state – to Owosso, Michigan.

Bagley moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1847 as an apprentice and starting his working career in a small chewing tobacco shop of Isaac Miller.

In 1855, he won election to the Detroit Board of Education, a position he held three years, by which time he had helped found the Republican Party.

On January 16, 1855, he married in Dubuque, Iowa to Frances E. Newbury, daughter of Rev.

Bagley helped to organize the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company and served as its president from 1867 to 1872.