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Charles Carroll

Male 1737 - 1832  (95 years)    Has more than 100 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name Charles Carroll 
    Birth 19 Sep 1737 
    Gender Male 
    Prominent People Founding Father USA 
    Death 14 Nov 1832 
    Siblings 1 Sibling 
    Person ID I369101  Geneagraphie
    Links To This person is also Charles Carroll of Carrollton at Wikipedia 
    Last Modified 8 Feb 2003 

    Father Dr. Charles Carroll,   b. 2 Apr 1702   d. 1781 (Age 78 years) 
    Mother Elizabeth Brooke,   b. 17 May 1709   d. 12 Mar 1761 (Age 51 years) 
    Marriage 15 Feb 1757 
    Family ID F146109  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Mary Darnall,   b. 19 Mar 1749   d. 10 Jan 1782 (Age 32 years) 
    Marriage 5 Jun 1768 
    Children 
     1. Elizabeth Carroll,   b. 1769   d. 1769 (Age 0 years)
    +2. Mary Carroll,   b. 2 Sep 1770, Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown
     3. Louisa Rachel Carroll,   b. 1772   d. Yes, date unknown
    +4. Charles Carroll,   b. 1775   d. 1825 (Age 50 years)
     5. Catherine Carroll,   b. 1778   d. 1861 (Age 83 years)
     6. Catherine Carroll,   b. 1778   d. 1861 (Age 83 years)
     7. Elizabeth Carroll,   b. 1780   d. 1783 (Age 3 years)
    Family ID F146088  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 19 Feb 2002 

  • Photos Photos (Log in)Photos (Log in)

  • Notes 
    • Only child
      cousin of John Cardinal Carroll

      on July 4, 1826 with the almost simultaneous deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, he became the last surviving signer of the Declaraion of Independence

      In the year 1776 fixty-six American colonists, Charles Carroll of Carrollton among them, signed the Declaration of
      Independence.

      At the age of 10, Charles went off to Bohemia Manor Academy run by the Society of Jesus near the Pennsylvania line. Since Catholic churches and schools were forbidden, it was rather like going underground. He did well and easily passed the pre-Binet test for intelligence. With his second cousin, John Carroll, the future Archbishop of Baltimore, Charles was preparing for the Jesuit College of St. Omers, in French Flanders.
      After St. Omers, he went to the College of French Jesuits at Rheims, then to the College of Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He began in Bourges in 1757 to study law. He hated law from the very first. Dry, dry, dull, dull, he wrote home over and over again.
      By 1763-1764 Charles was twenty-six; his law studies and his stay abroad were almost over; and it was time for the marriage he was to arrange himself. He announced that he would rather be disinherited than married against his will.

      Charles thought his life in Maryland would follow the classic formula of “rural amusements such as farming...united to
      Philosophy...” But the estate his father made over to him was no little farm, and he soon found that he was not exactly a rural type. Fresh from London, he was at home in crowded, competitive, cheerful Annapolis, where there were parties all the time and somebody was always suing somebody else. From the manor, Carrollton, which his father now made over to him, he took the name Charles Carroll of Carrollton which he used the rest of his life.
      Some of the friends he made in Maryland were, of course, in the close-knit little Roman Catholic society, many of them cousins. Partly because they were afraid of being slighted and excluded by their political masters, partly because they enjoyed relaxing in each other's company, Maryland Catholics had always pretty much flocked together. It was the easiest, safest way.
      From 1773 when he emerged as the First Citizen, he served well first his province, then his nation and his state.
      Left alone in Annapolis in 1801 , Charles found it rather dull. Baltimore was the booming town now, the interesting place to be. At the house of Richard and Mary Caton, he settled down to enjoy his old age.
      He died in 1832 at the age of 95 in Baltimore at the residence of his daughter Mary and her husband Richard Caton. Funeral services were held at Baltimore's Catholic Cathedral and he was buried at his beloved Doughoregan Manor, beneath the altar
      in the chapel.
      **************
      Charles served as a state senator from February 1777 but was ousted in 1800 by the Democrats. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1788 and served until 1792. His political, economic and social successes were enormous

      but he had one very personal failure, and that was his son Charles Carroll of Homewood. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was hopeful that his son's marriage in July 1800 to Harriet Chew of Philadelphia, daughter of the Chief Justice of the state court of Pennsylvania and sister of Colonel John Eager Howard's wife Peggy, would have a settling effect, but again was to be disappointed. Young Charles' refusal to keep correct and clear accounts in the cost of building and furnishing the house at Homewood which the elder Carroll had promised the newlyweds. It cost $40,000, four times what Carroll had intended to spend. In June 1816 Harriet and her four daughters, Elizabeth, Mary Sophia, Harriet and Louisa moved permanently to Philadelphia (son Charles Carroll V shortly left for school abroad.)



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