St. Elizabeths Hospital presidential assassins Richard Lawrence (who attempted to kill Andrew Jackson) and John Hinckley Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan, as well as the assassin of James Garfield, Charles J. Guiteau (until his execution). Other notable residents were Mary Fuller, James Swann, Ezra Pound, and William Chester Minor. The poet Ezra Pound was kept in St. Elizabeths on the charge of treason for 13 years (1946–58). Despite his being sane, and proving it by publication of two volumes of poetry and several translations, he was deemed unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity. In 1958 the treason charges were dropped, but
Charles J. Guiteau for Garfield at the since-demolished Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, getting his shoes shined, pacing, and engaging a cab to take him to the jail later. As Garfield entered the station, looking forward to a vacation with his wife in Long Branch, Guiteau stepped forward and shot Garfield twice from behind, the second shot piercing the first lumbar vertebra but missing the spinal cord. As he surrendered to authorities, Guiteau said: "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. ... [Chester A.] Arthur is president now!" After a long, painful battle with infections, possibly brought on by his doctors' poking and