Bricker, with partner Daniel Erb, arranged for the purchase of the large tracts of land around the Grand River from native leader Joseph Brant through Richard Beasley.
Daniel Hagey's patrilineal ancestors had lived in Saxony before emigrating to the United States, and Ezra E. Eby claims that the family originated in southern Switzerland, which they left to flee religious persecution.
Following in the shadow of the much loved and charismatic Eby, Hagey's tenure and accomplishments were never as widely praised.
[3] Towards the end of his career, he was challenged by the divisions revival meetings brought to the Ontario Mennonite Conference.
At first Bishop Hagey embraced new converts form these meetings and baptized those from Eby's Port Elgin revival.
This changed by the time the Waterloo converts sought baptism, directly because of objections lodged by the conference leadership itself.
This group was baptized later in 1871 by an American bishop invited north by the revivalists, letting the matter increase the growing division between the two camps.
Just at this time came the winged arrow of death and bore the soul of Bishop Hagey from the scenes of his life's activity, from the companionship of his faithful circle of followers, and from the worrying of this world, to the regions beyond the skies where trials and temptations are no more, where Christ reigns supreme, in Heaven.
Their family consists of eleven children.Hagey's great-grandson Joseph Gerald "Gerry" Hagey founded the University of Waterloo.