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.
1880 Republican National Convention agenda to visitors. Garfield enlisted the support of the other candidates from the convention to help with the campaign. The 1880 Democratic National Convention chose Winfield Scott Hancock as the presidential candidate and William Hayden English as his vice-presidential running mate. The election featured a very close popular vote that put Garfield ahead with a majority of less than 10,000; some sources put the margin as low as 2,000. However, Garfield won the election with 214 of the 369 electoral votes in the country. On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot by a former Chicago lawyer named Charles J. Guiteau