Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Charles Carroll of Carrollton (September 19 1737–November 14 1832) was a lawyer and politician from Maryland who was a delegate to the Continental Congress and later a United States Senator. He was the last surviving and only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Biography

He was born on September 19, 1737 at Annapolis, Maryland. His reputed attendance at the Jesuit preparatory school at Bohemia in Cecil County cannot be confirmed from contemporary records, and he may have been schooled at home before departing for Europe, where he attended the College of St. Omer in France, and graduated from the College of Louis the Grand in 1755. He continued his studies in Europe, and read for the law in London before returning to Annapolis in 1765.

Carroll was a voice for independence in Maryland. In 1772 he engaged in a debate conducted through anonymous newspaper letters and maintained the right of the colonies to control their own taxation. As a Roman Catholic, he was barred from entering politics, practicing law, and voting. However, writing in the Maryland Gazette under the pseudonym "First Citizen," he became a prominent spokesman against the governor's proclamation increasing legal fees to state officers and Protestant clergy. Carroll served on various committees of correspondence.aoc.gov

He was commissioned with Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Chase in February 1774 to seek aid from Canada.http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/carroll.cfm He was a member of Annapolis' first Committee of Safety in 1775. In early 1776, while not yet a member, the Congress sent him on a mission to Canada. When Maryland decided to support the open revolution, he was elected to the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and remained a delegate until 1778. He arrived too late to vote in favor of it, but was able to sign the Declaration of Independence. His signature reads "Charles Carroll of Carrollton," which is why he has gone down in history this way. At the time he was probably the richest man in America, and as he signed an observer stated "There go a few millions." Throughout his term in Congress he served on the board of war.

Carroll returned to Maryland in 1778 to assist in the drafting of a constitution and forming a state government. Carroll was re-elected to the Continental Congress in 1780, but he declined. He was elected to the state senate in 1781 and served there continuously until 1800.

When the United States government was created, the Maryland legislature elected him to the first United States Senate. In 1792 Maryland passed a law that prohibited any man from serving in the State and national legislatures at the same time. Since he preferred to be in the Maryland Senate, he resigned from the U. S. Senate on November 30, 1792.

Carroll retired from public life in 1801. After Thomas Jefferson became president, he had great anxiety about political activity, and was not sympathetic to the War of 1812. After both Jefferson and Adams died on July 4, 1826, he became the only surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. He came out of retirement to help create the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. His last public act, on July 4, 1828, was the laying of the cornerstone of the B&O's Carrollton Viaduct, named in his honor and still in use today. He died in November 14, 1832 at Baltimore, and is buried in his Doughoregan Manor Chapel at Ellicott City, Maryland.

Carroll funded the building of what is known today as Homewood House, a 140 acre (570,000 m²) estate in northern Baltimore, Maryland as a wedding gift to his son, Charles Jr. and Harriet Chew. Charles Jr. then oversaw the design and construction of the house, which began construction in 1801 and had mostly finished by 1808. Research shows that he incorporated suggestions from his wife. It took five years to build and cost $40,000, four times the budgeted expense. The house never really fulfilled any of their expectations, as it did nothing to cure Charles Jr.'s idleness and alcoholism or prevent the couple from separating years later.

Homewood was donated to Johns Hopkins University in 1876 and later became its main campus. Today, Johns Hopkins operates Homewood House as a museum, and its beautiful Georgian architecture serves was the inspiration for the Hopkins' architecture.

Monuments and memorials

Named in his honor are counties in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia, as well as East and West Carroll Parishes, Louisiana. Also named for him is the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in Brooklyn.

In 1903 the state of Maryland added a bronze statue to the Capitol Building's National Statuary Hall Collection. It is located in the Hall of Columns. http://www.aoc.gov/cc/art/nsh/carroll.cfm

Family life

Charles of Carrollton's grandfather,

Charles Carroll known as Charles Carroll the Settler, was an Irishman from Littemourna, who was a clerk in the office of Lord Powis Around the year 1659 King James II, he emigrated from England to America, thus establishing one of the most influential families in American politics. [http://www.mdisfun.org/press_room/evergreen_Irish.asp" target="_blank" >^*

Charles' sole son born in 1702 and was named Charles, to distinguish himself from his father, he was known as Charles Carroll of Annapolis ^*, but is not to be confused with his son of the same name (the subject of this article).

Charles married Mary Darnall, known as Molly, on June 5, 1768. They had seven children before Molly died in 1782, but only three survived infancy: Mary, Charles Jr., and Kitty. Mary married to Richard Caton. From 1820 to 1832, Carroll would winter with the Catons in Baltimore. Charles Jr. (sometimes known as Charles Carroll of Homewood because he oversaw its design and contruction) married Harriet Chew and lived in Philadelphia. Harriet was the daughter of Benjamin Chew, the chief justice of Pennsylvania, and her sister married John Eager Howard who had served in the Senate with Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Charles Jr. was an alcoholic who reportedly consumed up to two quarts of brandy a day. This led to erratic behavior that resulted in his separation from Harriet.

Today, Carroll's descendants own the largest parcel of land in Howard County, Maryland, with over 1000 acres (4 km²) of valuable, but historically preserved land in Ellicott City, Maryland.

Carroll in Fiction

Charles Carroll was portrayed by actor Terrence Currier in the 2004 film National Treasure starring Nicolas Cage. He is accurately described as the last living signatory of the Declaration of Independence. Carroll is inaccurately described as a Freemason in the film; Catholics were not permitted to be Freemasons. Though the film does not explicitly state Carroll's location of death as being Washington, D.C., it inaccurately implies it.

Carroll's signature

In the 1940s, newspaper journalist John Hix's syndicated column "Strange As It Seems" published an interesting (though unverified) explanation for Charles Carroll's distinctive signature on the Declaration of Independence. Every member of the Continental Congress who signed this document automatically became a criminal, guilty of sedition against King George III. Carroll, because of his wealth, had more to lose than most of his companions. Some of the signators, such as Caesar Rodney and Button Gwinnett, had unusual and distinctive names which would clearly identify them to the King; other signators, with more commonplace names, might hope to sign the Declaration without incriminating themselves.

According to Hix, when it was Carroll's turn to sign the Declaration of Independence, he rose, went to John Hancock's desk where the document rested, signed his name "Charles Carroll" and returned to his seat. At this point another member of the Continental Congress, who was prejudiced against Carroll because of his Catholicism, commented that Carroll risked nothing in signing the document, as there must be many men named Charles Carroll in the colonies, and so the King would be unlikely to order Carroll's arrest without clear proof that he was the same Charles Carroll who had signed the Declaration. Carroll immediately returned to Hancock's desk, seized the pen again, and added "of Carrollton" to his name.

References

External links

Charles Carroll