Charles Carroll of Carrollton
(1737-1832)
BIRTH
September 19, 1737
PLACE
Annapolis, Maryland
DEATH
November 14, 1832
PLACE
Baltimore, Maryland
FAMILY
MOTHER
Elizabeth Brooke Carroll
(1709-1761)
WIFE
Mary Darnall Carroll
(1749-1782)
CHILDREN
Polly Carroll Caton
(1770-1846)
CHILDREN
Charles Carroll of Homewood
(1775-1825)
CHILDREN
Catharine Carroll Harper
(1778-1861)
HOMES
Charles Carroll House
MD - Annapolis, Maryland, USA
POLITICAL VIEWS
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION ADVOCATE
FEDERALIST PARTY MEMBER
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
CHRISTIAN
CATHOLIC
MEMBERSHIPS
COLONIZATION SOCIETY LEADER
AWARDS
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a Maryland planter, statesman, and delegate to the Continental Congress. His family was Catholic, extremely wealthy, and descended from an Irish immigrant who had accumulated vast Maryland lands. At about ten Carroll was sent abroad for education. He then trained in law at the Middle Temple in London. In 1768 he married Mary Darnall, joining another wealthy Catholic family. He died Nov 14, 1832 in Baltimore, Maryland.
EARLY LIFE
Charles Carroll was born on September 19, 1737, in Annapolis, Maryland, the only child of Charles Carroll of Annapolis and Elizabeth Brooke Carroll. His family was Catholic, extremely wealthy, and descended from an Irish immigrant who had accumulated vast Maryland lands. Because Catholics faced legal restrictions in the colony, the family’s wealth did not provide equal access to public office. At about ten Carroll was sent abroad for education. He studied at Jesuit institutions in France, including the College of St. Omer, and later pursued classical, philosophical, and legal studies in Paris. He then trained in law at the Middle Temple in London. His long European education made him fluent in French, grounded him in Catholic intellectual life, and exposed him directly to British constitutional culture. Carroll returned to Maryland in 1765 after roughly sixteen years abroad. His father supervised the family estates and expected him to preserve both Catholic faith and property. In 1768 he married Mary Darnall, joining another wealthy Catholic family. They raised children within a close religious and kinship network. Despite exclusion from voting and office, Carroll entered political debate through print. Using the name “First Citizen,” he argued against fees imposed by the proprietary government and developed a public reputation as a defender of colonial rights. His education allowed him to combine legal reasoning with accessible political argument. Before becoming the longest-lived signer of the Declaration, Carroll had been shaped by Catholic minority status, immense inheritance, prolonged Jesuit education, French language and culture, English legal training, marriage, and exclusion from ordinary political participation. The contrast between personal wealth and civic disability sharpened his understanding of religious liberty and representative rights, while his family’s slaveholding estates embodied the limits of those principles.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton entered Maryland politics as a wealthy Catholic landowner whose religion had excluded him from colonial public office. Educated in France and trained in law in London, he returned to manage extensive family estates. In 1773, writing as "First Citizen," he challenged Daniel Dulany in a newspaper debate over proprietary authority and fees, gaining recognition among opponents of the colonial government.
Carroll supported independence and joined Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Chase on the unsuccessful mission to secure Canadian cooperation in 1776. Maryland then elected him to the Continental Congress, where he signed the Declaration of Independence. He was its only Roman Catholic signer. Service on wartime committees and in Maryland's new senate connected revolutionary principles with the practical organization of military resources and state government.
A supporter of the federal Constitution, Carroll became one of Maryland's first United States senators in 1789. He left the federal Senate in 1792 when state law required a choice between federal and state legislative offices, continuing in Maryland politics until 1800. His outlook favored a strong national framework and leadership by men with property and established standing. Religious liberty had particular meaning for him, but his support for independence did not imply a program of equal political participation for everyone.
His fortune depended on land and enslaved labor. He criticized slavery in principle and supported colonization, yet retained many people in bondage, contradicting his commitment to liberty. In later life he invested in commercial enterprises and participated in the beginnings of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, ceremonially breaking ground in 1828. He died in 1832 as the last surviving signer of the Declaration. His career joined Catholic emancipation with continuing slavery and elite power. His papers document revolutionary leadership and its economy.
CAREER
DEATH
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a Maryland planter, statesman, and delegate to the Continental Congress. His family was Catholic, extremely wealthy, and descended from an Irish immigrant who had accumulated vast Maryland lands. At about ten Carroll was sent abroad for education. He then trained in law at the Middle Temple in London. In 1768 he married Mary Darnall, joining another wealthy Catholic family. Carroll came out of retirement to help create the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. Carroll was admitted as an honorary member of The Society of the Cincinnati in the state of Maryland in 1828. Unlike hereditary members, honorary members are not eligible to be represented by a living descendant. In May 1832, he was asked to appear at the first Democratic Party Convention but did not attend on account of poor health. Carroll died on November 14, 1832, at age 95, in Baltimore, at the Caton home. The surviving summary is clearer about the date and setting than about the day-by-day medical course. A specific treatment history, exact final symptoms or unrecorded bedside conversations cannot be reconstructed confidently from it. The events of the earlier public career provide context for the final period but should not be mistaken for evidence of the immediate physical cause. Illnesses, injuries and deaths involving relatives or contemporaries are separate events.
Doughoregan Manor Chapel
3500 Manor Lane, Ellicott City, MD, 21042, United States
GRAVE
MARKER
Franklin to Montreal Marker
526 Lake Shore Rd, West Chazy, NY 12992
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
1. Charles Carroll of Carrollton: Faithful Revolutionary — Scott McDermott. Find on Amazon
2. Charles Carroll of Carrollton — Ellen Hart Smith. Find on Amazon
3. Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland: A Carroll Saga, 1500–1782 — Ronald Hoffman and Sally D. Mason. [Family biography] Find on Amazon
4. The Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Volume I — Kate Mason Rowland. [Early biography and correspondence] Find on Amazon
5. The Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Volume II — Kate Mason Rowland. [Early biography and correspondence] Find on Amazon
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