Samuel Stagg defended President Manuel L. Quezon's veto of a Catholic-supported Commonwealth Assembly bill to provide religious instruction in public schools.
His wife Mary Boyd Stagg (1893-1944) then took over as pastor of the Cosmopolitan Church, becoming the first female ordained a Protestant minister in the Philippines.
On 25, 28, 29, or probably 30 August 1944, Dr. Hawthorne Darby,[5] Helen Jonaline Wilk,[6] Mary Boyd Stagg, Blanche Jurika,[7] and another woman named Sybil were taken to the Cementerio del Norte where they were beheaded and buried.
[10] 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.
Samuel Stagg worked as a farmer, educator, and writer of the Philippines Free Press under the pen name Jungle Philosopher.