William S. Maynard the estate stretched west to the present Ashley street, and halfway up the block to Liberty. For many years he owned a grocery, drug and dry-goods store and was said to be the wealthiest man in Ann Arbor at the time of his suicide. His grave is in Forest Hill Cemetery in Ann Arbor. Maynard's first wife was Julia Guiteau (d. 1856), whose nephew, Charles Julius Guiteau, assassinated President James Garfield on July 2, 1881. For a short while in 1859 Charles Guiteau lived with his uncle in Ann Arbor, while trying to gain admission to the University of Michigan.
Charles J. Guiteau had been legally insane at the time of the shooting (because God had taken away his free will), he was not really medically insane, which was one of the major causes of the rift between him and his defense lawyers. Edward Charles Spitzka, a leading alienist, testified as an expert witness. Spitzka had stated that it was clear "Guiteau is not only now insane, but that he was never anything else." While on the stand, Spitzka testified that he had "no doubt" that Guiteau was both insane and "a moral monstrosity". Spitzka came to the conclusion that Guiteau had "the