John D. Wagg Papers,

John D. Wagg, son of minister James Wagg, was born in Jefferson, North Carolina, on 8 July 1835. Although he initially studied medicine in 1854 at Jefferson Academy, Wagg eventually entered the ministry. On 17 July 1858, the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South authorized and licensed him as a preacher. The Holston Conference, in the mid-nineteenth century, encompassed most of western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and southwestern Virginia.

Wagg's first appointments were in the Virginia counties of Giles, Russell, and Wise where he labored as a circuit preacher. By 1859, however, he was reassigned to Hillsville, Virginia, where he married Lavinia Anderson on 13 May 1862.

Wagg subsequently assumed ministerial duties in Asheville, North Carolina, in late 1862 or early 1863. His only child, Martha Elizabeth Wagg, was born there at the home of lawyer Joshua Roberts on 6 March 1863. On 6 August 1864, his wife Lavinia died.

In late 1864, John D. Wagg relocated to Bristol, Virginia, although he continued to deliver occasional sermons in Asheville. Wagg was superannuated by the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1865 because of tuberculosis. He died in 1866 and is buried in Hillsville