Henry Tifft Gage was born on December 25, 1852, in Geneva, New York, to Dewitt Clinton Gage and Catherine Glover. His father was a lawyer who owned $2,000 of real estate and $250 of personal property by 1860. The family lived in Gorham, New York, until around 1855, when they moved to Saginaw, Michigan. He studied law in Saginaw, and he was admitted to the Michigan bar in 1873. He moved to Los Angeles, California, in the 1870s and worked as a sheep dealer there.
Gage resumed his legal practice in 1877, and he quickly became a prominent lawyer. He married Francesca Rains around 1879, and they had six children, including: Arthur, born around 1881; Volney, born around 1886; Francis, born around 1890; Lucille, born around 1892; and Fanita, born around 1894.
Gage supported the Republican Party, and he attended the Republican National Convention in 1888. President Benjamin Harrison appointed him a federal prosecutor in 1891, and he was elected governor of California in 1898. His administration was ridden with scandal, and the party refused to renominated him four years later. In 1909, President William Howard Taft appointed him Minister to Portugal. He returned to Los Angeles the following year, and he died in Los Angeles on August 28, 1924.
Image: Henry Tifft Gage (courtesy Wikicommons)