Guiteau's Second Cousin In Pontiac

Guiteau's Second Cousin in Pontiac.

The Detroit Evening News in giving a description of some of the inmates of the ladies' ward in the Pontiac insane asylum contains the following:
"Mrs. Abbie Maynard, of Ann Arbor, is a cousin of Charles Guiteau, the assassin of Presldent Garfield. She has been an inmate of various asylums for many years and is probably incurable. Insanity, it would appear, courses through the veins, in greater or less degree, of the unhappy Guiteau family. Mrs. Maynard has intense hallucinations of hearing and of sight. She hears all sorts of stories, particularly those of a nature slanderous to her character, and she sees the persons who utter the slanders. It is not believed that she will recover the use of her senses."

This item refers to Miss Maynard daughter of the late Wm. S. Maynard formerly a leading merchant and citizen of this place. Her mother was a first cousin of Guiteau. It is believed that her insanity is owing in great part to mesmeristic experiments allowed to be made upon her. She was an apt subject and it is believed that these experiments greatly weakened her mind. Of a family of six daughter this one was the only one whose mind was in the least clouded, and it is but just to the memories of the dead and the feelings of the living members to state that they were all bright girls and the mother a lovely example of the true noble, clear-minded woman, a perfect lady in every sense of the word.