The Ohio President Who Was Shot by a Madman and Buried Like a King 👑

If you’ve ever wandered Lake View Cemetery and spotted what looks like a medieval watchtower peeking over the trees, that’s not some forgotten Game of Thrones set. 🏰

It’s the James A. Garfield Memorial—and it’s the resting place of one of Ohio’s most extraordinary (and criminally underappreciated) presidents.

I recently filmed a couple videos for social media about Garfield’s memorial, and realized not only just how many Ohioans didn’t even know it existed, they don’t know the wild story behind his assassination and his presidency either.

So my little history-nerd bootie is here to tell you all about it. 🤓

James A. Garfield was born in 1831 in a log cabin in what’s now Moreland Hills, just east of Cleveland. His dad died when he was just 2, and his mom raised four kids alone—which might explain why Garfield worked harder than basically everyone.

He chopped wood, drove mules on the Ohio & Erie Canal, and attended Western Reserve Eclectic Institute (now Hiram College), where he eventually became president of the school. NBD. 💁‍♀️

He was known for his intellect (he could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other—at the same time) and for his rock-solid moral compass. He served as a Union general in the Civil War, then spent 17 years in Congress. He was incredibly accomplished and rose through the ranks of every part of society as a beloved and respected leader.

In 1880, he was nominated for president almost by accident—he went to the Republican National Convention backing another candidate, but walked out with the nomination himself after a dramatic deadlock.

Garfield ran on a platform that promised civil service reform, education funding, and equal rights for Black Americans. He supported Reconstruction and fought against political corruption and the patronage system that rewarded party loyalty with government jobs. Basically, he was a reformer with a brain—and that made a lot of people nervous.

His presidency lasted just 200 days. ⌛

On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot by a delusional office-seeker named Charles Guiteau, who believed Garfield owed him a government job. Spoiler alert, he didn’t…Guiteau was pretty much a tinfoil hat-wearing type of fellow who took out his anger and frustration on a target that seemed sufficiently high-profile.

The president didn’t die instantly—instead, he suffered through 11 agonizing weeks as doctors repeatedly probed his wounds with unwashed hands and tools. (Antiseptic techniques existed, but American doctors were still weirdly skeptical of the whole “germs are real” thing.)

One of the strangest moments came when Alexander Graham Bell—yes, the inventor of the telephone—tried to locate the bullet using a crude metal detector-like device powered by electromagnetism.

It might’ve worked… except Garfield was lying on a metal bedspring, which completely interfered with the readings. Doctors rushed him out, only allowing him to scan one side of the body, which tragically turned out to be the wrong side, and the bullet was never found during his life.

With the help of today’s modern medicine, President Garfield undoubtedly would have lived through the ordeal, making his death all the more tragic. 😭

In the end, it wasn’t the bullet that killed him—it was infection. Garfield died on September 19, 1881. The public was outraged. His death became a rallying cry for civil service reform and eventually led to the Pendleton Act, which began dismantling the corrupt spoils system.

But Cleveland wasn’t about to let him be forgotten.

In 1885, construction began on a massive memorial in Lake View Cemetery, designed by Cleveland architect George Keller. The building blends Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine influences—basically a “greatest hits” of architectural drama.

It was funded through private donations from more than 100,000 Americans, many of them schoolchildren who mailed in coins to honor the fallen president.

The memorial opened in 1890 and remains one of the most stunning (and strangely underrated) landmarks in the state.

The interior features a 12-foot-tall white Carrara marble statue of Garfield beneath a glowing gold mosaic ceiling. The walls are covered with stained glass and colorful murals depicting Garfield’s life. Climb the spiral stairs and you’ll reach an outdoor balcony with sweeping views of downtown Cleveland and Lake Erie.

The structure itself rivals the greatest European monuments, both in its beauty and its grandeur.

And beneath it all, in the quiet, dimly lit crypt, rest the actual coffins of Garfield and his wife Lucretia—making it the only presidential tomb in the U.S. where the caskets are visibly displayed. Their daughter and son-in-law’s ashes are interred there too.

The experience of standing inside this amazing structure just tucked away in a half-forgotten corner of Cleveland is surreal. It took my breath away, and his story inspired me even more.

So the next time someone says Ohio’s boring, point them to Lake View. This is the state that raised a president, lost him to madness and medical malpractice, and buried him like royalty in a castle overlooking Cleveland.

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