Luther Wilson Guiteau: A Brief Biography

232 Words1 Page

Guiteau was born in Freeport, Illinois, the fourth of six children of Jane August (née Howe) and Luther Wilson Guiteau,[1] whose family was of French Huguenot ancestry.[2] He moved with his family to Ulao, Wisconsin (now Grafton, Wisconsin) in 1850 and lived there until 1855,[3] when his mother died. Soon after, Guiteau and his father moved back to Freeport.[4] He inherited $1,000 from his grandfather as a young man and went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in order to attend the University of Michigan. Due to inadequate academic preparation, he failed the entrance examinations. Despite cramming in French and algebra at Ann Arbor High School, during which time he received numerous letters from his father concerning his progress, he quit and in June 1860[5] joined the utopian religious sect known as the Oneida Community, in Oneida, New York, with which Guiteau's father already had close affiliations. …show more content…

After leaving, he went to Hoboken, New Jersey, and attempted to start a newspaper based on the Oneida religion called The Daily Theocrat.[5] This failed and he returned to Oneida, only to leave again and file lawsuits against the community's founder, John Humphrey Noyes.[7] Guiteau's father, embarrassed, wrote letters in support of Noyes, who had considered Guiteau irresponsible and

More about Luther Wilson Guiteau: A Brief Biography

Open Document