CARROLL, CHARLES, OF CARROLLTON, b. Md., Sept. 20, 1737; d. Nov. 14, 1832, aged 95 years; the last survivor of the fifty signers of the declaration of American independence. He was educated in the Jesuit colleges of St. Omer and Rheims; studied law at Bourges, Paris, and London, returning to America in 1764. He inherited the last and the largest of the old manorial estates of Maryland, a property estimated in 1775 at $2,000,000, and he was then considered the wealthiest private citizen in the colonies. In 1775, he was chosen a member of the "committee of observation "at Annapolis, and in the same year sent to the provincial convention. In 1776, he was one of the commissioners sent to persuade the Canadians to join in the revolt against England. Returning to Maryland, he was prominent in bringing the colonial delegates to agree upon union for independence; and July 4, 1776, he was sent to congress, where, Aug. 2, he signed the declaration. At the time of signing, a delegate, alluding to Carroll's great wealth, remarked, " There goes a few millions; but there are many Charles ('arrolls, and the British will not know which one it is;" whereupon Carroll immediately added after his name of Carrollton, an addition that was ever afterward respected. In congress, he was
one of the board of war. About the close of 1776, he was one of the committee that drafted the Maryland constitution, and was chosen to the senate of that state. In 1777, he was again sent to congress, and in subsequent years was repeatedly elected to the state legislature. In 1789, he was United States senator; in 1799, one of the Mary land and Virginia boundary commission. July 4, 1821, but four of the signers of the declaration were living: Carroll, William Floyd of New York, and ex-presidents Adams and Jefferson. Floyd died in the next month, and Adams and Jefferson both died July 4, 1826, leaving Carroll the sole survivor. His last public act was the laying of the corner-stone of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, July 4, 1828, when in his 90th year. Carroll's grand-daughter, Miss Caton (d. 1853), was the Marchioness of Wellesley.