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BOOK OF THE ROYAL BLUE.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY

COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY THE PASSENGER DEPARTMENT, BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD.

VOL. VIII.

G

(All rights reserved.)

WILLIAM ELLIOTT LOWES, EDITOR.

BALTIMORE, JULY, 1905.

CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON.

No. 10.

BY HENRY BARRETT CHAMBERLIN, "CHICAGO RECORD-HERALD." RATEFUL to Almighty God for the blessing which, through Jesus Christ our Lord, He has conferred upon my country, in her emancipation, and upon myself, in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy, to live to the age of eighty-nine years and to survive the fiftieth year of American independence, and certifying by my present signature my approbation of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on the fourth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventysix, which I originally subscribed on the second day of August of the same year, and of which I am now the last surviving signer, I do hereby recommend to the present and future generations the principles of that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them, and pray that the civil and religious liberties they have secured to my country may be perpetuated to the remotest posterity and extended to the whole family of man.

wrote his reiteration upon a fac-simile of the document, which now reposes in the library of the city of New York.

CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON. "Baltimore, Aug. 2, 1826.”

On this, the first day of the one hundred and thirtieth year of the independence of the United States, is recalled the reaffirmatory declaration of the last of the signers. The year of the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence found living but three of the men who had affixed their signatures to the immortal charter. While it found three living it left but one, for that memorable Fourth of July was marked by the dramatic death of both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, leaving Charles Carroll of Carrollton the sole survivor of the signers.

Just fifty years from the day he had originally signed the Declaration, Carroll

In May, 1776, while Charles Carroll was in Canada with Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Chase as a commission appointed by Congress to induce the Canadians to join the movement against the mother country, the Maryland convention met at Annapolis and passed a resolution instructing its delegates not to concur in a vote for independence. independence. June 24 Carroll returned and took his seat in the house, protesting against the action. Four days later Maryland fell in line with its sister colonies, recalled the former instructions and advised her deputies that they were authorized to concur with the others in declaring the united colonies free and independent states. The passage of this new resolution was due to Carroll's influence, and on the Fourth of July he was chosen a delegate to Congress. Hastening from the convention, he took his seat in that body on the 18th of July, 1776. On the following day, July 19, the Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, was ordered engrossed on parchment, and August 2 it was signed by fifty-six delegates, headed by John Hancock, president. Of the fifty-six, twenty-one were lawyers, ten merchants, four doctors, three farmers, one a clergyman and one a printer. Twenty-five were college graduates and sixteen were men of wealth, but of them all few risked so much as the Marylander, who was the richest man of the colonies, George Washington ranking second.

That none had more at stake than Carroll was recognized by his colleagues. When asked by John Hancock, "Will you sign it?" he replied, "Most willingly," and as he made his signature a member exclaimed: "There go a few millions."

A story from that time which appeals to the patriotism of this day recounts that

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CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON.

when the delegate from Maryland had signed his name and was about to return to his seat, Benjamin Franklin, who was standing near, said:

"Well, friend Carroll, if our cause shall fail and the English king decides that we shall hang for this day's work you will be safe enough. There are many Carrolls in Maryland, and it is likely that some other of your name may expiate your crime."

Quick as thought Carroll turned, seized the pen which he had just laid down, and after his name wrote, of Carrollton."

There was no mistaking that. Charles Carroll of Carrollton. If anyone were to pay the penalty he would be that man.

Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the third of his line in Maryland. His grandfather, Charles Carroll, arrived in the colony in 1688 before the English revolution which put William of Orange on the throne. In England he had been secretary to a favorite minister of James II, and on coming to the new land James granted him large tracts in the Province of Maryland, which were divided into three manors of 20,000 acres each, called after possessions which his family, tracing its origin back to the Irish kings, had held in Ireland. These names were Ely O'Carroll, Doughoregan and Carrollton. These lands were the foundation of the Carroll fortune.

The father of the signer was also a Charles Carroll, but was distinguished from his son by the name of the second manor, always signing himself Charles Carroll of Doughoregan. He married his cousin, Elizabeth Brooke, and to them was born on September 19, 1737, Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

Though Maryland was originally a Roman Catholic province, the passing of the Stuarts from the English throne resulted in many disabilities being placed upon the adherents to that faith. Among these was Charles Carroll of Doughoregan, who, unable to give his son what he considered a suitable education for a Roman Catholic gentleman, sent him to France, where he attended the Jesuit colleges of St. Omer's and Rheims. Later he studied law, both in Paris and London, being entered in the Inner Temple, as was his grandfather before him. He remained abroad until he was a man of twenty-eight. During this preparatory period he traveled on the continent, being entertained there, as in England, by the

foremost people of the time, his wealth and aristocratic lineage securing him an entree.

*

Soon after his return, in 1765, Charles Carroll declared in a letter to a friend, “I am resolved never to give myself the least concern about politics. * * Swift, I think, says somewhere, that a man who, by his superior industry and application, makes an acre of ground produce two for one in the customary method of cultivation, is of more real utility to his country than all the politicians that ever existed or will exist in it." But almost immediately he entered with spirit into the controversy between the colonies and Great Britain, which at this time was weakening the bonds between the two. The stamp act had been passed, but not yet repealed, and an interesting parallel between the attitude of the merchants of that time and those in China to-day may be drawn from Carroll's statement of their action. "The merchants at New York and Philadelphia have come to a resolution not to send for any more goods of the manufacture and growth of Great Britain, and to contradict the orders already given, till a repeal of the stamp act is obtained; this resolution will, in my opinion, avail us more than petitioning; for should the people of England be so deaf as not to hear and be moved with our complaints, or so blind as not to see the effects of this injustice, they will not be so callous as not to feel them.

Following the repeal of the stamp act was a period of comparative quiet, but in 1771 the arbitrary conduct of the Maryland governor so aroused his indignation that in defense of the rights of the people, which he felt had been infringed, he wrote a series of political letters over the signature of "First Citizen." Aristocrat as he was, from this time he was regarded by the people as one with them in their resistance to English domination. In 1774 he was appointed member of the committee of correspondence; in 1775 he served on the committee of safety, and in 1776, as has already been told, he was sent to Canada, his religion and knowledge of the French language fitting him for this service. Accompanying him was his cousin, Father John Carroll, who was afterward the first archbishop of Baltimore.

*

It was in 1774 that Carroll helped place in the calendar of Maryland the state holiday-"Peggy Stewart's Day." In October

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CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON.

of that year some Scotch merchants of Annapolis braved public opinion by accepting a consignment of tea. Anthony Stewart, owner of the brig Peggy Stewart, and one of the signers of the nonimportation agreement, forgetful of his pledge, paid duties on seventeen packages of tea. This becoming known, a committee was appointed to prevent the landing of the forbidden cargo, The excitement ran so high that the captain of the vessel was in personal danger. His friends appealed to Carroll to use his influence with the people. Carroll advised him that the only way to allay the anger of the people was to burn the brig. Stewart, who was regarded as the chief offender, with his own hand fired the Peggy Stewart, and in the presence of a great crowd of watchers she was destroyed. Since then October 19 has been known in Maryland and celebrated as Peggy Stewart's day.

During the entire revolutionary period Carroll was active. After peace had been declared, for some time he devoted his attention to his estates and a large iron foundry in which he was interested.

He

was appointed a delegate to the constitutional convention, but declined to serve. In 1788 he was elected United States senator from Maryland for the short term. He was re-elected, but resigned and entered the state senate, where he served for ten years. This service completed, he retired from political life.

On the 5th of June, 1768, Charles Carroll was married to his cousin, Mary Darnall, who, with her mother, had made her home with his father, Charles Carroll of Doughoregan. Her devotion to the latter is shown by the fact that eleven days after his death in 1782 she too died. Seven children were born to the Carrolls, among them one son, Charles, who, like his father and grandfather, was sent to Europe to pursue his studies. One of the daughters married Richard Caton, becoming the mother of three daughters, known when they visited England as the American Graces." One of these, Mary, married Robert Patterson, brother to Miss Patterson, who became the wife of Jerome Bonaparte. He was brother to the Emperor Napoleon and grandfather to Charles Joseph Bonaparte, secretary of the navy. Mrs. Patterson, having been left a widow, married the Marquis of Wellesley, brother to the Duke of Wellington.

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In 1831 Lady Wellesley was appointed

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You observe that republics can exist and that the people under that form of government can be happier than under any other. That the republic created by the Declaration of Independence will continue to the end of time is my fervent prayer. That protracted existence, however, will depend on the morality, sobriety and industry of the people, and on no part more than on the mechanics, forming in our cities the greatest number of their most useful inhabitants."

The leading event of the celebration was the laying of the corner stone of this first railroad of the land. The venerable Carroll of Carrollton, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, as he cast the first spadeful of earth for the beginning of the railroad, said: "I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to that of signing the Declaration of Independence, if indeed second to that."

The implements, with the badge worn by Charles Carroll on the occasion, were among the relics exhibited by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at the world's fair in Chicago in 1893, and are now in Baltimore.

In the ninety-sixth year of his age, Charles Carroll of Carrollton died at Baltimore November 14, 1832, and was buried in the chapel of Doughoregan Manor. The monument marking the spot bears the simple inscription:

CHARLES CARROLL

of Carrollton. Born Sept. 19, 1737.

Died Nov. 14, 1832.

His greatest and most lasting monument is the nation which he helped to create.

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