Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Born: September 19, 1737
Died: November 14, 1832
Colony/State: Maryland
Occupation / Public Role: Planter, lawyer, legislator, delegate to the Continental Congress, U.S. Senator
Contribution to the Founding Era: Delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, member of Maryland’s revolutionary leadership, and later one of Maryland’s first United States Senators. He was the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was born in Annapolis, Maryland, into one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in the colony. He received an extensive Jesuit education in Maryland and Europe and also studied law in France and England before returning to Maryland in the 1760s. Because of restrictions on Roman Catholics in colonial Maryland, he could not fully participate in public life in the same way Protestants could, but he still emerged as one of the colony’s leading Patriot voices.
Before independence, Carroll became known for his political writings and his criticism of proprietary and British-aligned authority in Maryland. He rose into the Revolutionary movement through the Annapolis Convention and other patriotic bodies, and in 1776 he was selected to go on the Continental Congress’s diplomatic mission to Quebec alongside Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Chase. He was then elected to the Continental Congress in July 1776.
Carroll signed the Declaration of Independence as one of Maryland’s delegates, though he arrived too late to vote for independence itself on July 2. He was present to sign the engrossed document that survives today. His signature, “Charles Carroll of Carrollton,” distinguished him from other members of the extended Carroll family and from his father, who was still living. He later became the last surviving signer of the Declaration after John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826.
After the Revolution, Carroll remained a major public figure in Maryland and national politics. He served in the Maryland Senate for many years and later became one of Maryland’s first United States Senators. He also helped support the Revolutionary cause financially and served on the Board of War while in Congress. The Constitution Center notes that he remained in Congress until 1778 and later continued breaking barriers as a Catholic in public office.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton lived an exceptionally long life and remained a symbol of the founding generation well into the nineteenth century. He died in Baltimore in 1832 at the age of ninety-five. He is one of the most distinctive signers of the Declaration: wealthy, highly educated, Catholic in a period of legal restriction, and one of the longest-lived witnesses to the American founding. He was not just present at the creation — he lingered long enough to become a living relic of it.
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