The journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, Vol. IX, 1910

by Various

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

As an Irish-American, Charles Carroll of Carrollton easily stands first among all of his race in the history of the past of this Republic, at least so far as the State of Maryland is concerned, in character, in patriotism, in self-sacrifice and in services, if not in abilities. He was born at Annapolis on September 30, 1737, and was the son of Charles and Elizabeth Brooke Carroll and grandson of Charles Carroll of Kings County, Ireland. At eight years of age he was sent by his parents to France, where he received his education, remaining six years at the Jesuit College at St. Omers, six years at the Jesuit College, Rheims, two years at the College of St. Louis le Grand, Paris, and one year at Bruges, Belgium, to study civil law; returning again to college at Paris. Mr. Carroll went to London, in 1757, and commenced to study law in the Middle Temple, where he took his degree in 1764, and returned to Maryland, equipped with all of the attributes and capacities of a trained scholar and lawyer. Yet with it all as a Catholic, he had no political rights in the Colony, where he was born and where by right of inheritance he was the wealthiest man in the realm.

Mr. Carroll, however, had no need to earn his living in the Courts and first rose to fame through his memorable controversy with Daniel Dulany, in which he took the popular side, although politically without personal status, and posed as the foremost champion of freedom. In this contest Mr. Carroll proved an able controversialist and it was generally conceded the victor. His superb education had equipped him with every advantage; he was the inferior of no man in the Colony. The effect of his bold assertions and declarations against the Proprietary Governor was electric on the people and made them the more apt for revolution. Mr. Carroll wrote under the nom de plume of “First Citizen” and it was not until the controversy was at an end that his identity became known. His popularity became intense throughout the Province. It was but natural that when the clamors of revolution became potent among the people that he should become a candidate for public favor and honors. In December, 1774, he was selected as one of the Commissioners of Observation for Anne Arundel County and also on the Committee of Safety of the Province. He was elected to represent Anne Arundel County in Maryland Convention on December 7, 1775, and in February, 1776, was appointed by the Continental Congress a commissioner with Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Rev. John Carroll to visit Canada and endeavor to kindle the fires of revolt in that Country. Congress then took up the discussion of a Declaration of Independence from England, and on June 28, 1776, the Maryland Convention in session at Annapolis resolved that the Congressional Deputies from the State be empowered and authorized to concur with the United Colonies or a majority thereof in declaring all of the Colonies “Free and Independent.” On July 4, 1776, Messrs. Charles Carroll, Matthew Tilghman, Thomas Johnson, William Paca, Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone and William Alexander were elected delegates to Congress then in session at Philadelphia. Mr. Carroll took his seat on July 18th, having just returned from Canada. It is related that on August 2 an engrossed copy of the famous Declaration of Independence was placed on the desk of the Secretary of Congress for the signature of the members. Mr. John Hancock, the President of the body, in a conversation with Mr. Carroll, asked him if he would sign the document. “Most willingly,” said Mr. Carroll, who then took up a pen and signed his name—“Charles Carroll of Carrollton.” He affixed the name of his manor of Carrollton in order to be distinguished from his eminent relative, Charles Carroll, Barrister, and not, as is generally supposed, to show his defiance of England and of the consequence which might accrue in case the Revolution would be crushed by Great Britain, which would be, at least, the confiscation of his estates and his own reduction to poverty, if not execution as a traitor. His act is generally interpreted to have been caused by such an impulse alone, but chivalry as well as the fine sense of honor, which then governed men and women, was evidently his motive in doing so. He was then the richest man in the Colonies and his action simply meant also that if Great Britain won, he was prepared to sacrifice more than any man in the Colonies at the time. His cousin, Charles Carroll, Barrister, was almost as rich as he was, however, and either would have been a rich prize to the British if the Revolution had failed. “There goes a few millions,” said one of the delegates who stood around and who had seen Mr. Carroll sign the Declaration, thus showing that all agreed at the time that Carroll’s action was regarded as extraordinary. It was a truth that no single signer of the greatest Charter of Human Rights ever written risked as much intrinsically as Mr. Carroll. He was a member of the Board of War, and served in Congress until November 10, 1776, with marked ability; being succeeded by his namesake, Barrister Carroll. In December, 1776, he was a member of the first Maryland Senate and in 1777 he was returned to Congress and in 1781 was re-elected to the Maryland Senate. In 1788 he was elected one of the first United States Senators from Maryland, and in 1789 and 1806 was elected and reëlected to the Senate of Maryland. He was also appointed in 1797 one of the Commissioners from Maryland to settle the boundary line dispute between Maryland and Virginia. Mr. Carroll continued a member of the Maryland Senate until 1824, when he retired from public life. In April, 1827, he was elected a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, and on July 4, 1828, he laid the corner stone of the railroad at Mount Clare, Baltimore. While in Baltimore he resided at the mansion located at the corner of Lombard and Front Streets, which was also the home of his son-in-law, Richard Caton, and his famous granddaughters, the beautiful Misses Caton, called “The Three Graces.” On November 30, 1832, Mr. Carroll died in Baltimore, full of years and of honors, having been for many years the last of the signers of the famous Declaration. Physically he was of slight build and below the middle size, his face being strongly featured, his eyes quick, inquisitive, piercing and therefore thoroughly Gaelic; his countenance was noble, and while in action and general bearing replete with energy. His manners were graceful and easy, as became a man of gentle breeding and education, and his expressions elegant, refined and usually considerate, even in conversation with his servants.

In June, 1768, he married Miss Mary Darnell, daughter of Henry Darnell, Jr., and had three children by the union, Charles Carroll, who married in 1799, Harriett Chew, daughter of the Hon. Benjamin Chew of Pennsylvania and sister of the famous “Peggy” Chew of “Mischeanza” fame and wife of Gen. John Eager Howard; Elizabeth Carroll, who married Richard Caton, and Catherine Carroll, who married Robert Goodloe Harper. Charles Carroll, eldest son of Charles and Harriett Chew Carroll, married Mary Higgs Lee and was the father of Hon. John Lee Carroll, late Governor of Maryland. Mr. Carroll, in his declining years, particularly, was one of the best known and beloved of Baltimoreans. He attended high mass at the Cathedral regularly every Sunday and dined frequently with the Archbishops of Baltimore, particularly with Dr. Whitefield, with whom he was intimate. The Archepiscopal residence was then located on North Charles Street, on a portion of the site of the former Young Men’s Christian Association Building, at Charles and Saratoga Streets. On one occasion, it is related that Mr. Carroll was introduced to a number of the altar boys, on whose heads he placed his hands as they passed by where he stood and exclaimed: “God bless you, my boys. Love God and obey your superiors. Honor and defend your Country’s flag, venerate your parents and obey the authorities of the civil Government.”

DR. BRYAN DeFORREST SHEEDY,
Of New York City.
A Member of the Society.

Mr. Carroll at the time of his death was 95 years of age, his frame being bent, although his voice was strong, his walk firm and quick and his eyes and face benevolent in expression. He dressed after the fashion of his day, his apparel including a dark waistcoat and knee breeches, black silk hose, low cut shoes and silver buckles. He attended many functions, even just before his death, and was particularly in request at patriotic gatherings. One of the last public events in which he took part was that of a great dinner given to him by the great Irish merchant William Patterson, at the latter’s country residence, “Cold Stream,” near the City. The dinner was held July 4, 1831, the 54th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration to bring together the remnant of the Revolutionary heroes, then living in Baltimore. The occasion was made notable in every possible way, numerous invitations having been sent out by the hospitable host, who was himself a hero of the great struggle for human freedom. Everything set before the guests except the wines and brandies was produced on Mr. Patterson’s estate and the dinner was, as tradition states, a feast worthy of the distinguished company which attended it. The reception to Mr. Carroll was a most cordial one. He drove out to Cold Stream, as was the fashion of the time, in his own carriage, with his own colored coachman on the box, and was escorted to the shady grove, wherein the dinner was spread by Mr. Patterson and several crippled veterans of the Revolution. There he was greeted by the assembly with uncovered heads and was given a rousing chorus of cheers. Patriotic speeches and songs were given during the dinner, which lasted far into the evening and was enjoyed thoroughly by Mr. Carroll.

The great tribune was eminently social in his nature and many stories are existent which illustrate this trait. One of these relates to the famous collation given by Lloyd Dulany at his private residence at Annapolis, now part of the City Hotel, a few days after the burning of the Peggy Stewart, at which function Mr. Carroll was one of the guests. At this collation there was used a punch bowl which had been brought over from England in the Peggy Stewart, and Mr. Dulany explained how he had come into the possession of the article, which had been sent to him as a present. The Captain, he stated, said to him that the bowl was not a part of the cargo of the Peggy Stewart, as it was not on the manifest. The Captain had placed the bowl in his cabin with his private property and had delivered it in person to him. To this observation Mr. Carroll is said to have smilingly observed: “We accept your explanation, provided the bowl is always used to draw the same kind of tea.” As is well known, the Peggy Stewart was destroyed because she had a cargo aboard of the obnoxious stamp burdened tea, but the bowl was full no doubt of that superior kind of punch which the Marylanders of that day so well knew how to brew. This bowl stood for years on the counter of the City Hotel at Annapolis, and thousands of Marylanders have drank the same kind of “tea” out of it since the time when Mr. Carroll made his famous expression. This function, it may be well observed, was held in the abode of an Irish American Lloyd Dulany, who was a connection of the celebrated Daniel Dulany. Mr. Carroll was also connected in a way with the famous episode of the burning of the Peggy Stewart at Annapolis and the destruction of her cargo of tea by men disguised as Indians. It was he who interceded with the mob at Annapolis in behalf of the owner of the Peggy, Mr. Anthony Stewart, and he harangued the crowd from the steps of Mr. Stewart’s residence and thus prevailed on them not to do violence to the merchant, whose pro-English proclivities were well known. He was the one to suggest that Mr. Stewart himself would destroy the vessel, and its offensive cargo of “tea,” a suggestion which the mob accepted with delight, and which no doubt saved Stewart’s residence from destruction. Mr. Carroll accompanied the frightened and shaking merchant, as a protector, on that eventful day, when he went down to Windmill Point, where the Peggy lay, and himself applied the torch to the brig and her cargo.

Mr. Carroll in those days lived in Annapolis and maintained the life of a wealthy Maryland gentleman. He dwelt in a spacious mansion on what was known as the “Spa,” in the ancient City, a quarter which was then the fashionable one at the State Capitol, and had been the same during the Colonial Government and was known far and wide throughout the Colonies, as the most elegant locality in Annapolis, then termed “The Athens of America.” His terraced garden sloped down to the brink of the lovely “Spa” and was held in by a pavilion with sandstone walls and ornamented by a pavilion where the owner and his guests could sit on a warm afternoon and enjoy the cool breezes from the water. It was here that he wrote his famous “First Citizen” letters attacking the proclamation of Governor Eden (Colonial), imposing an extra tax on the people by increasing official fees and by raising the special assessments on the clergy from 30 to 40 pounds of tobacco per annum. Mr. Carroll, as has been stated, took up the popular side and defended the people, being antagonized by Mr. Daniel Dulany, whose nom de plume was “Antillon.” In a reply as to whom the “First Citizen” was, Mr. Carroll wrote: “Who is the citizen? A man, in the prosperity of his country, a friend to liberty, a settled enemy to lawless prerogatives.” It was in this controversy that Mr. Dulany threw the taunt to Mr. Carroll that he was a disfranchised English citizen and could not vote. All of which was true, for, while he could not vote, he was at that time the richest man in the Colonies and worth at least two million pounds.