filled with work. She could make a good barrel and till a farm in her girlhood. Her sympathies early went out for the fugitive slaves, of whom she saw many. In 1S29 she became the wife of Mr. Gage, a lawyer practicing in McConnellsville, Ohio. They reared a family of eight children, and, in spite of all her domestic distractions, Mrs. Gage continued to read, write, think and speak on woman's rights, temperance and slavery. In 1851 she attended the woman's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, and was chosen president of the meeting. From that time she has been conspicuous in the councils of the woman suffragists. In 1853 she moved to St. Louis, Mo. , with her family. There her views caused her to be branded as an abolitionist and ostracised by "good society." The resources of the family were reduced by three disastrous fires, doubtless the work of incendiaries. Her husband's health failed, and she took a position as assistant editor of an agricultural paper, published in Columbus, Ohio. The war destroyed the circulation of the paper. Her four sons enlisted in the Union army, and she went, in 1862, to Port Royal, to care for the sick and wounded soldiers. She spent thirteen months in Beaufort, Paris and Fernandina. ministering to soldiers and freedmen alike. In her work she was aided by her daughter, Mary. She lectured throughout the North to soldiers' aid societies in advocacy of the Sanitary Commission. She went without commission or salary - to Memphis, Yicksburg and Natchez. She aroused great interest in the work for the soldiers. After the war she lectured successfully on temperance. In 1867 she was made helpless by paralysis, which shut her from the world, being able only to talk, read and write. Her mental faculties were unimpaired. She was for years prominent in national woman's rights conventions. Under the pen-name "Aunt Fanny" she has written many juvenile stories, poems and social sketches. She has been a contributor to the "Saturday Visitor" and the New York "Independent" Her latest published works are a volume of poems and a temperance story. " Elsie Magoon."
GAGE, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn, woman suffragist, born in Cicero, N. Y., 24th March, 1826. She was an only child, very positive in nature, yet very sympathetic and eager to discover the meaning of life. Her father, Dr. H. Joslyn, was a physician of large practice, varied and extensive information, strong feelings, decided principles, an investigator of all new questions, hospitable and generous to a fault. His house was ever the home of men and women eminent in religion, science and philosophy. Thus from her earliest years Matilda was accustomed to hear the most abstruse political and religious questions discussed. She was early trained to think for herself, to investigate all questions, and to accept nothing upon authority unaccompanied by proof. It was a law of the household that her childish questions should receive full answers. Her mother was an accomplished woman of an old Scotch family, the youngest daughter of Sir George Leslie, and through him related to the celebrated Gregory family, whose members as mathematicians, astronomers and physicians gave much impetus to those sciences in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While inheriting her fearlessness, her decided principles and her love of examining everything new from her father, from her mother came her historical tastes, sterling honesty of purpose, intense love of justice, regard for truth and love of the refined and beautiful. Although Mrs. Joslyn was in sympathy with her husband upon reform questions, yet her early training, habits and hereditary tendencies gave a conservative bias to her social views, which was not without its effect upon her daughter. While the grandfather of Matilda upon her mother's side was of conservative political views, her grandfather upon her father's side, a New England patriot of the Revolutionary War, had not alone defended his fireside against the stealthy Indian foes, but had served his country both on sea and land. Under such opposite hereditary tendencies the struggle between conservatism and liberalism in the young girl's heart was long and severe, but, endowed with an intense love of liberty, she developed into a radical reformer. With no college open for girls at that day, she was largely educated at home. It was the pride and delight of Dr. Joslyn that his daughter should pursue branches of learning rarely studied by girls, he himself teaching her Greek and mathematics, giving her practical instruction in physiology, and even considering the idea of a full medical education for her in
MATILDA JOSLYN CAGE.
Geneva College, of which his own old preceptor, Dr. Spencer, was then president. Although that plan was not consummated, her father's medical library helped to mold her thoughts. At a later date she was sent to the Clinton, N Y., Liberal Institute. She early stood upon the platform, giving her first lecture at the age of seventeen, before a literary society of her native village. Her subject was astronomy. When eighteen, Matilda Joslyn became the wife of Henry H. Gage, a young merchant of her own town. The young couple lived first in Syracuse, N Y., afterward in Maulius. in the same county, and thence removing to Fayetteville, N. Y., where Mrs. Gage now resides, having lived in the same house thirty-eight years. There her family of one son and three daughters have been reared. One son died in infancy. Although her husband's business and a rapidly increasing family demanded much of her time, Mrs. Gage never lost her interest in scientific and reform
