Today is the birthday, in 1737, of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Carroll was known contemporaneously as the “First Citizen” of the American colonies, a consequence of signing articles in the Maryland Gazette with that pen name. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and Confederation Congress. Carroll later served as the first United States Senator for Maryland. Of all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Carroll was one of the wealthiest and most formally educated. A product of his 17-year Jesuit education in France, Carroll spoke five languages fluently.
Carroll’s father was Charles Carroll of Annapolis, who was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1702. Though he inherited the plantation of Doughoregan Manor from his father, as a Roman Catholic he was forbidden from participating in the political affairs of the colony at the time. Carroll was born on September 19, 1737, in Annapolis, Maryland. Charles Carroll of Annapolis granted Carrollton Manor to his son, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. It is from this tract of land that he took his title “Charles Carroll of Carrollton.”
He became one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, owning extensive agricultural estates, most notably the large manor at Doughoregan, Hockley Forge and Mill, and providing capital to finance new enterprises on the Western Shore.
Beginning with his election to Maryland’s committee of correspondence in 1774, Carroll represented the colony in most of the pre-revolutionary groups. Carroll was elected as a Maryland representative the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and remained a delegate until 1778. He arrived at the 2nd Continental Congress too late to vote in favor of the Declaration of Independence but was present to sign the official document that survives today. He signed the document in Philadelphia on August 2, 1776.
Throughout his term in the Second Continental Congress, he served on the board of war. Carroll also gave considerable financial support to the American Revolutionary War.
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. Carroll came out of retirement to help create the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. In 1828, he commissioned the Phoenix Shot Tower in Baltimore and laid its cornerstone. The 234-foot tower, which is still standing, was the tallest structure in the United States until the Washington Monument was built.
Carroll died on November 14, 1832, at age 95, in Baltimore, at the Caton home. He holds the distinction of being the oldest-lived Founding Father. He had outlived four of the first five U.S. presidents. His funeral took place at the Baltimore Cathedral (now known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Carroll was buried in his Doughoregan Manor Chapel at Ellicott City, Maryland after a national day of mourning.
Named in his honor are counties in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia as well as two Louisiana parishes, East and West Carroll. Cities and towns named for him are in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois (Mount Carroll, Illinois), Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, and New York, as well as neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Tampa. Charles Carroll Middle School in New Carrollton, Maryland; Charles Carroll High School in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Philadelphia; and Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin, are named in his honor.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, c. 1763 Yale Center for British Art
Things you don’t want to find in your home…
Nice photo!
In 1952, its peak year in the U.S., polio outbreaks left nearly 21,000 victims paralyzed and 3,000 dead. After the country introduced a vaccine, which became widely available in 1955, cases in the U.S. dropped to fewer than 100 per year within a decade.
On this week in 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival scored their only UK No.1 single with ‘Bad Moon Rising’ a US No.2 hit. Also on this day the group started a four-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with ‘Green River.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6iRNVwslM4
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