Jedediah Hyde Baxter In 1872, he was appointed Chief Medical Purveyor, and in 1874 he received promotion to colonel. In 1875, Baxter graduated from Columbian University (now George Washington University Law School) with an LL.B. degree. Baxter's duties as Chief Medical Purveyor included serving as personal physician to the President of the United States, and he attended James A. Garfield's family. Baxter was out of town when Charles J. Guiteau shot Garfield in July 1881, and was not able to examine Garfield following the shooting. Garfield's other physicians prevented Baxter from seeing Garfield, which generated controversy both immediately after the shooting and after
Charles J. Guiteau the work of Noyes. He wandered from town to town lecturing to any and all who would listen to his religious ramblings, and in December 1877 gave a lecture at the Congregational Church in Washington, D.C. Guiteau spent the first half of 1880 in Boston, which he left owing money and under suspicion of theft. On June 11, 1880, he was a passenger on the SS "Stonington" when it collided with the SS "Narragansett" at night in heavy fog. The "Stonington" was able to return to port, but the "Narragansett" burned to the waterline and sank, with significant loss of