Date: c. 1855
125 E. South Street, Raleigh
Easement Acquired 9/6/2002
Individually Listed
National Register of Historic Places
South Park/East Raleigh National Register Historic District
Raleigh Historic Landmark
This house is a striking example of Greek Revival architecture with distinctive Italianate accents, one of the few surviving antebellum structures in the southern part of the original area of Raleigh. The house has been associated with several leading figures in local, state, and national history. The builder, Sion Hart Rogers, was a prominent local politician before the Civil War. Major William J. Bagley was a North Carolina senator during the Civil War and was the clerk to the NC Suprpreme Court for 19 years. The Bagley’s son-in-law, Josephus Daniels, distinguished himself not only as a journalist and newspaper editor but also as the chief clerk of the Department of the Interior under president Grover Cleveland, the Secretary of the Navy during President Woodrow Wilson’s entire tenure in the White House, and as ambassador to Mexico during the first nine years of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. Dr. Albert Pegues, who purchased the house from the Bagley family, was a noted black educator, serving as dean of the Theological Department at Shaw University for ten years. In the fall of 1998, CAP brokered an agreement between Gould & Associates and Shaw University that created a third entity, the Rogers-Bagley-Daniels-Pegues House, LLC for the purpose of rehabilitating the c. 1855 house and the neighboring Frazier House under a fifty-year lease from Shaw. Both houses were restored according to a rehabilitation agreement. CAP featured the house on its Fall 2002 Landmarks Tour and the rehabilitation was honored with an Anthemion Award in June, 2003. CAP holds an easement for the period of the lease.