At the age of 10, Charles went off to Bohemia Manor Academy run by the Society of Jesus near the Pennsylvania line. Since Catholic churches and schools were forbidden, it was rather like going underground. He did well and easily passed the pre-Binet test for intelligence. With his second cousin, John Carroll, the future Archbishop of Baltimore, Charles was preparing for the Jesuit College of St. Omers, in French Flanders.
After St. Omers, he went to the College of French Jesuits at Rheims, then to the College of Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He began in Bourges in 1757 to study law. He hated law from the very first. Dry, dry, dull, dull, he wrote home over and over again.
By 1763-1764 Charles was twenty-six; his law studies and his stay abroad were almost over; and it was time for the marriage he was to arrange himself. He announced that he would rather be disinherited than married against his will.
Charles thought his life in Maryland would follow the classic formula of “rural amusements such as farming...united to Philosophy...” But the estate his father made over to him was no little farm, and he soon found that he was not exactly a rural type. Fresh from London, he was at home in crowded, competitive, cheerful Annapolis, where there were parties all the time and somebody was always suing somebody else. From the manor, Carrollton, which his father now made over to him, he took the name Charles Carroll of Carrollton which he used the rest of his life.
Some of the friends he made in Maryland were, of course, in the close-knit little Roman Catholic society, many of them cousins. Partly because they were afraid of being slighted and excluded by their political masters, partly because they enjoyed relaxing in each other's company, Maryland Catholics had always pretty much flocked together. It was the easiest, safest way.
From 1773 when he emerged as the First Citizen, he served well first his province, then his nation and his state. At the age of 63, both his father and wife were dead; his three surviving children were grown. The eldest, Mary, was married to Richard Caton; Catherine (Kitty) was married to Robert Goodloe Harper. The only son, named, of course, Charles, married Harriet Chew and became Charles Carroll of Homewood. They were all gone by 1801. Left alone in Annapolis, Charles found it rather dull. Baltimore was the booming town now, the interesting place to be. At the house of Richard and Mary Caton, he settled down to enjoy his old age.
He died in 1832 at the age of 95 in Baltimore at the residence of his daughter Mary and her husband Richard Caton. Funeral services were held at Baltimore's Catholic Cathedral and he was buried at his beloved Doughoregan Manor, beneath the altar in the chapel.
When Carroll's grandfather, Charles Carroll the Settler was given the chance to enter the service of the Calverts he accepted. In 1688, armed with a commission as Attorney General of the colony, Charles Carroll the Settler set out for Maryland. Charles Carroll the Settler (also known as "The Attorney General") was born in 1660. He arrived in Maryland in 1688. The Settler died in July 1720, leaving his wife, Mary Carroll and four of ten children: Charles Carroll of Annapolis (his legal heir), Mary, Eleanor and Daniel Carroll of Duddington. The Settler's estate was divided among his widow and children, and was a considerable one. In 1723 Charles Carroll of Annapolis reached his majority and came from school in France to assume control of the family fortune.
Charles Carroll of Annapolis' extraordinary drive to enlarge his fortune was matched by his determination to have an heir who was mentally and morally fit to receive and preserve the legacy. He married Elizabeth Brooke on February 15, 1757. They had only one child, Charles Carroll of Carrollton (called "Charley".)
Charles Carroll of Carrollton has always been most widely acclaimed for an honor he received by default: on July 4, 1826 with the almost simultaneous deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, he became the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. He married Mary Darnall on June 5, 1768. Molly was pretty and spirited and the Carrolls led an active social life in Annapolis where they lived. The first baby, a daughter named Elizabeth was born in 1769. By 1780, Molly had delivered seven children and buried three. Molly died in 1782.
Charles served as a state senator from February 1777 but was ousted in 1800 by the Democrats. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1788 and served until 1792. His political, economic and social successes were enormous, but he had one very personal failure, and that was his son Charles Carroll of Homewood. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was hopeful that his son's marriage in July 1800 to Harriet Chew of Philadelphia, daughter of the Chief Justice of the state court of Pennsylvania and sister of Colonel John Eager Howard's wife Peggy, would have a settling effect, but again was to be disappointed. Young Charles' refusal to keep correct and clear accounts in the cost of building and furnishing the house at Homewood which the elder Carroll had promised the newlyweds. It cost $40,000, four times what Carroll had intended to spend. In June 1816 Harriet and her four daughters, Elizabeth, Mary Sophia, Harriet and Louisa moved permanently to Philadelphia (son Charles Carroll V shortly left for school abroad.)
Charles Carroll of Carrollton's eldest daughter Mary married Richard Caton in 1786. Richard and Mary had four daughters - Marianne, Elizabeth, Louisa and Emily. Carroll's youngest daughter Kitty married Goodloe Harper in 1801.
The accomplishments of these post-Revolutionary Carrolls - the brilliant marriages, the elegant style of life at Doughoregan and at the Catons' Lombard Street house where after 1821 Charles Carroll of Carrollton spent his winters, were very different from those of their forebears.
Charles Carroll the Settler established extensive land holdings. He arrived in Maryland in 1688 and lived in the capital of the Maryland colony, Saint Mary's City. In 1694 when the capital was moved to Annapolis, Charles soon followed. In 1695 he acquired 180 acres of land which was called "Goffes Increase." This property increased to 822 acres by 1738 as was known as "The Farm," and was about three miles from Annapolis near the South River. At the end of the 17th century, Charles Carroll the Settler also purchased a 500 acre tract called "Carroll's Forest" in Prince George's County, as well as received warrants for survey of "Ely O'Carroll" and "Litterluna" in Baltimore County.
In 1702 he also purchased a 7000 acre tract called "Doughoregan Manor" in Baltimore County, now Anne Arundel County. In 1703 he purchased 3000 adjoining acres, known as the "Addition."
After Charles Carroll of Annapolis' death in 1783 and when the economic and cultural center of the Chesapeake Bay shifted from Annapolis to Baltimore, Doughoregan Manor came to be the principal residence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. This house was begun in 1735.
