Charles Carroll Biography

Dromo's Den

CARROLL, Charles, of Carrollton (1737=1832). An American patriot. He was born in Annapolis, Md., and was educated in the Jesuit colleges of Saint-Omer, Rheims, and Louis le Grand. He then studied law in Bourges, Paris, and London, and returned to America in 1765. He inherited the largest of the old manorial estates of Maryland. In 1775 he was chosen a member of the "Committee of Observation'' at Annapolis and in the same year was sent to the provincial convention. In 1776 he was one of the commissioners sent to persuade the Canadians to join in the war against England. Returning to Maryland, he became prominent as an advocate of union and independence, and in July, 1776, was sent to Congress, where on August 2 he signed the Declaration, writing "of Carrollton" after his name, so that there could be no doubt concerning his identity, "Carrollton" being the name of the family mansion. In Congress he was a member of the Board of War. In 1776 he was one of the committee that drafted the Maryland Constitution and was chosen to the State Senate. In 1777 he was again sent to Congress and in subsequent years was repeatedly elected to the State Legislature. In 1789 he was United States Senator and in 1799 was a member of the Maryland and Virginia boundary commission. He died in Baltimore on Nov. 14, 1832, aged 95, the last survivor of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Consult his Life, by J. H. B. Latrobe (Philadelphia, 1824). Consult also Mayer (ed.), Journal of Charles Carroll of Carrollton during his Visit to Canada in 1776, as One of the Commissioners from Congress (Baltimore, 1845), and Rowland, Life of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (2 vols., New York, 1898).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 598.