An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder, is one of those “you can’t make this stuff up” historical episodes, well documented and engagingly told by Susan Wels.

In 1881, Charles Julius Guiteau, considered a certifiable “lunatic” (possibly schizophrenic in modern terms) shot President James Garfield. He lingered in pain for ten weeks, and died. Guiteau was apprehended and jailed immediately following the shot, and a trial occurred some months later. He was found guilty and hung despite a plea of insanity (reasonable) by his legal counselor, a family member. (Americans in 1881 had no sympathy for presidential assassins.)

And herein lies the connection between Guiteau (the assassin) and the Oneida Community (utopia).

During the first half of the 19th Century, a wide range of ministries, collectives and cultish-communities began cropping up in pristine idyllic settings, promising a new Garden of Eden, where followers and worshipers could find eternal answers to their eternal problems. Or perhaps embrace spiritualism, mediums and mystics with all sorts of special effects.

These cults had become very popular. Some also included sex. Or maybe no sex. Your choice.

As one might imagine, these movements also attracted a variety of rogues, misfits, charlatans, and loners with borderline levels of sanity aching to find their place.

Arguably the flagship of those utopian communes was the Oneida Community in upstate New York, which opened its doors in 1841, and continued for decades. It had begun as a haven where members could live and work together in a communal spirit. Helping each other. Improving the soul. Finding elusive peace. Many well known people, including PT Barnum and Horace Greeley even came as day-tripping tourists, happy to purchase the cult’s crops and crafts.

The Oneida Community also espoused “free love.” Marriage was not involved. Love was not involved. “Shame” was not involved. But there were a lot of caveats. Their self-styled minister was in charge of who-joined-who in unholy un-matrimony, including when and where. He was very sparing with his blessings. Mostly it was older men (well into their 50s and 60s) who indoctrinated young pubescent women (serious jailbait). Older women introduced the very young bucks in the arts of physical pleasure. Except perhaps, consummation. It was a definitely a little peculiar. But it is an interesting snapshot painted in Susan Wels’ articulate word-pictures.

But the connection-du-jour of this eminently readable book, was Charles Julius Guiteau. He has long been adjudged by his contemporaries, historians, and modern medical/psychiatric experts, as high in the misfit, semi-rogue, and loner category. If he was a borderline “lunatic” during his few years in the Oneida Community, he unquestionably crossed that border by 1881, and most sources deem him as insane. Period. 

Guiteau had always been a little strange, according to those who knew him. At 20, claiming to be “attracted by an irresistible power,” he declared his ambition to become a medium. A short while later, he showed up in the Oneida Community.

Even then, he displayed an excitable oddness and quick temper. Sometimes he brooded, sometimes semi-violent, he claimed to feel like a slave “bound hand and foot.” He could not bear the mutual criticism espoused by the collective. Worst of all, since sex was very high on his wish list, he was utterly rejected by the women. After planning and dreaming of a vocation in journalism – or maybe the ministry, he left. Nobody there seemed to mind, and indeed helped him out the door.

He spent the next 15 years floundering through various career options. He had no source of income other than modest amounts family members sent periodically. He borrowed, but never repaid. He lodged, and skipped out without paying the rent. And through it all, his ideas of self-grandeur never abated.

By 1880, having decided that his true vocation was politics, he wrote a disjointed speech for James Garfield, and haunted the Republican Headquarters in NYC for an opportunity to make his oration. Once again, he was thwarted in his efforts, and as it later came out, most people who were acquainted (including several high level politicos) suspected there was something not quite right in his head. Nevertheless, when Garfield won by a squeaker, mostly due to factional in-party feuding, Guiteau believed he was instrumental to the victory, and deserving of a consular appointment in Vienna – or Paris.

He went to Washington, showed up regularly at the White House begging for an appointment, and buttonholing important political figures in the hotel lobbies where they gathered. He was readily recognized; everyone was polite, but believed him to be decidedly peculiar. Meanwhile, his “consulate” efforts were going nowhere. After he was banned from the White House, and Secretary of State Blaine warned him “never to speak to me again,” Guiteau’s “edginess” had been breached. He began hearing voices advising that his only hope was to remove Garfield in favor of Vice President Chester Alan Arthur, who would be grateful and reward him. His plans were now afoot. He bought a gun.

Guiteau was immediately arrested, as he expected. His trial was a circus. His brother-in-law served as his counsel, pleading that Guiteau was deranged. He tried to lay the blame on the Oneida Community, quoting the head physician of NY’s Utica Asylum “it was there developed … and laid the foundation for the after character of religious ranting, hypocrisy and dishonorable conduct.” Well, maybe not.

Throughout, Wels’ scenario switches from the Oneida community itself to various contemporary aficionados and back and forth between Guiteau and Garfield. After the assassination the rapid demise of the Oneida Community was forever tainted by the association with a presidential assassin.

An Assassin in Utopia is one of those readable histories that adds needed color and personality to people and events of the past. It is chatty and engaging and a welcome change from dry didactic professorial writing. You can enjoy this one!

Susan Wels: An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder

Pegasus Crime (February 7, 2023)

ISBN: 1639363122

Available: Hardcover, Kindle and Audio