questions. She early became interested in the subject of extended opportunities for woman, publicly taking part in the Syracuse convention of 1852, the youngest speaker present. Chosen during the Civil War by the women of Fayetteville to present a Hag to the 122nd Regiment New York Volunteers, whose color company was recruited in that village, Mrs. Gage was one of the earliest to declare in her speech of presentation that no permanent peace could be secured without the overthrow of slavery. When under Governor Cornell the right for women of the Empire State to vote upon school questions was accorded, she conducted an energetic campaign, which removed incompetent male officials, placing in office a woman trustee, woman clerk and woman librarian. The work of Mrs. Gage in the National Woman's Suffrage Association is well known. From her pen have appeared many of the most able state papers of that body and addresses to the various political parties. As delegate from the National Woman Suffrage Association in 18S0, she was in attendance upon the Republican and Greenback nominating conventions in Chicago, and the Democratic convention in Cincinnati, preparing the address presented to each of those bodies and taking part in hearings before their committees. The widely circulated protest of the National Woman's Suffrage Association to the Men of the United States, previous to the celebration of the national centennial birthday, 4th July, 1876, was from her pen. as were also important portions of the Woman's Declaration of Rights presented by the National Woman's Suffrage Association in that celebration, Independence Hall, 4th July, 1876. From 1878 to 1881 Mrs. Gage published the "National Citizen," a paper devoted to woman's enfranchisement, in Syracuse, N. Y. Urged for many years by her colleagues to prepare a history of woman suffrage, Mrs. Gage, comprehending the vastness of the undertaking and the length of time and investigation required, refused, unless aided by others. During the summer of 1876 the plan of the work was formulated between herself and Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, comprising three large octavo volumes, of one-thousand pages each, containing engravings of the most noted workers for woman's enfranchisement. "The History of Woman Suffrage" (1881-87) is now to be found in the most prominent libraries of both Europe and America. In the closing chapter of volume one Mrs. Gage included a slight resume of "Woman, Church and State," a work she has still in hand. Several minor works have appeared from her pen. Among them are " Woman as Inventor" (1870), "Woman Rights Catechism" (1868), "Who Planned the Tennessee Campaign?" (1880), as well as occasional contributions to the magazines of the day. Among her most important speeches are " Centralization," " United States Voters," "Woman in the Early Christian Church" and "The Dangers of the Hour." Usually holding responsible positions on the resolution committees of both State and national conventions, Mrs. Gage has been enabled to present her views in a succinct manner. Her resolutions in 1878 on the relations of woman and the church were too radical for the great body of woman suffragists creating a vast amount of discussion and opposition within the National Woman's Suffrage Association, ultimately compelling her to what she deems her most important work, the formation of the Woman's National Liberal Union, of which she is president.
GAINES, Mrs. Myra Clark, heiress, born in New Orleans, La., in 1805, and died in that city, 9th January. 1885. She was the daughter of Daniel Clark, a native of SIigo. Ireland. He emigrated from Ireland and settled in New Orleans. In 1796 he inherited a large property from an uncle. He died in New Orleans, 16th August, 1813 and his estate w;is disposed of under his will dated 20th May, 1811, giving the property to his mother, Mary Clark, then living in Germantown, Pa. Then began the singular case which made Mrs. Gaines famous. Daniel Clark was reputed a bachelor, but he had a liaison with Zulime des Granges, a beautiful French woman, during the absence of her supposed husband in Europe. She bore two daughters, one in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1802. and the second in New Orleans, La., in 1805. The second was Myra. She was taken to the home of Colonel Davis, one of Mr. Clark's friends, where she was nursed by Mrs. Harper. In 1812 the girl was taken to Philadelphia with the Davis family, and there she was known as Myra Davis. In 1830 Myra discovered letters that revealed the secret of her birth. In 1832 she became the wife of W. W. Whitney, of New York City. Her husband received from Colonel Davis a letter containing an .account of a will made by Daniel Clark in 1813, shortly before he died, acknowledging Myra as his legitimate daughter and giving her all his estate. Mr. and Mrs. Whitney at once set about to regain the estate, then grown to great proportions. Evidence was produced to prove that such a will had been made, and on 18th February, 1856. the supreme court of Louisiana received the evidence as sufficient, but the lost or stolen will itself was never seen in all the years of the famous case. Then came a difficulty. The Louisiana law forbade a testator to devise to his illegitimate child. Then it was shown that her father had been married to her mother in 1803, in Philadelphia, by a Roman Catholic priest, at a private ceremony. Mrs. Des Granges had learned that her supposed husband was not legally her husband, as he had a living wife. She was therefore free to marry Mr. Clark. After he had made arrangements to acknowledge the marriage, he became suspicious of her fidelity. She was deserted by him. and she afterward was married again. The United States supreme court decided the fact of the marriage to Clark, and thus Myra's legitimacy was established. Her husband died, and Mrs. Whitney, in 1839, was married to Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines, who died in 1849. In 1886 Mrs. Gaines tiled a bill in equity to recover valuable property held by the city of New Orleans, and in December, 1867, she received a favorable decision. In 1S61 the estate was valued at thirty-five-million dollars. Up to 1874 Mrs. Gaines had got possession of six-million dollars. The bulk of the great estate was consumed in litigation. In April, 1877, the probate of Daniel Clark's will was recognized by the United States circuit court, and the city of New Orleans and other defendants were ordered to give account to a master in chancery for all the income derived by them from the property, and their titles were taken from them. An appeal was made, and was unsettled when she died. She showed reat magnanimity in refusing to dispossess four-hundred families occupying her lands. She preferred to obtain judgments against the city, and she refused to sell her claims to those who offered her large sums of money. Her whole life was a battle to Iree her own and her mother's name from stain, and she had the supreme satisfaction of knowing that she had succeeded.
GALE, Mrs. Ada Iddings, author and educates, was born in Dayton, Ohio A long line of Quaker ancestry accounts perhaps for one of her most prominent characteristics, an extreme conciliatoriness of nature. Her education was received in Albion College. In her early childhood her
