CARROLL, JOHN (1735-1815) , American Roman Catholic prelate, was born at Upper Marlborough, Prince George's county (Md.), Jan. 8, 1735, the son of wealthy Catholic parents. He was educated at St. Omer's in Flanders, becoming a novitiate in the Society of Jesus in 17J3, and then at the Jesuit college in Liege, being ordained priest in 1769 and becoming professor of philos ophy and theology. In 1771 he became a professed father of the Society of Jesus and professor at Bruges. As tutor to the son of Lord Stourton, he travelled through Europe in 1772-73. Shortly after the papal brief of July 21, 1773, suppressed the Society of Jesus, he returned to America, and set to work at a mission at Rock Creek, Montgomery county (Md.), where his mother lived. He shared the feeling for independence growing among the American colonists, foreseeing that it would mean greater religious freedom. In 1776, at the request of the Continental Congress, he accom panied Benjamin Franklin, Charles Carroll and Samuel Chase on their mission to secure the aid or neutrality of the French-Cana dians. In 1783 he took a prominent part in the petition to Rome to take the control of the American Church away from London; and after the recognition of the American Church as a distinct body, he was named prefect apostolic. In the summer of 1785 he began his visitations; in 1786 he induced the general chapter to authorize a Catholic seminary (now Georgetown university) ; and in 1788 he was chosen first American bishop. He was consecrated at Lulworth Castle, England, Aug. is, 1790, and his first synod met Nov. 7, 1791. At this period, although busy with administrative matters, he was an outstanding leader in the educational and cul tural life of Baltimore. Already in 1802 he was pressing for the creation of new sees in his diocese, and the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 gave added weight to this request; in Sept. 1805 the Prop aganda made him administrator apostolic of the diocese of New Orleans, to which he appointed John Olivier as vicar-general; and in 1808 Pius VII. divided Carroll's great diocese into four sees, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Bardstown (Ky.), suffragan to the metropolitanate of Baltimore, of which Carroll actually be came archbishop by the assumption of the long-delayed pallium on Aug. 18, 181I, having consecrated three suffragans in the autumn of 1810. In 1811 ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the Danish and Dutch West Indies was bestowed upon him. Carroll was now an old man, and the shock of the War of 1812, together with the action of the Holy See in appointing to the sees of Phil adelphia and New York other candidates than those of his recom mendation, weighed on his mind. He died in Georgetown, Dec. 3, 1815. By many he is reckoned the greatest figure in the Roman Catholic Church of the United States.
See Daniel Brent, Biographical Sketch of the Most Rev. John Carroll, . with Select Portions of His Writings, edited by J. C. Brent (1843) ; J. G. Shea, History of the Catholic Church in the United States (vol. ii., 1888).