Maryland on Stamps & Covers

Richard D. L. Fulton

Charles Carroll, III: 1985

“…to defend the liberties of my country, or die with them.”

          –Charles Carroll. upon signing the Declaration of Independence

The United States Postal System (USPS) issued a 14-cent, stamped postal card commemorating Charles Carroll, III, one of four Marylanders to sign the Declaration of Independence, on March 6, 1985.

The postal card depicts Carroll’s portrait, and the First Day (of issues) Covers (FDC) were canceled in Annapolis.

Postal cards differ from postcards.  Postal cards are printed by the USPS, including the depiction of a stamp, and are issued to be used as mail or as a souvenir of the issuance of the stamp represented. Postcards are privately printed, usually depicting places of interest, onto which a stamp must be added by the purchaser, in order for the card to be sent within the mail system.

Before the Revolution

Charles Carroll was born on September 19, 1737, at the Annapolis home of his parents, Charles and Elizabeth Carroll.

According to the Charles Carroll House of Annapolis website, Carroll, whose family possessed the largest amounted wealth of anyone else in Maryland, attended the Jesuit school at Bohemia Manor in Cecil County, and then at the Jesuit College of Saint-Omer, near the Belgian border in the Flanders region, and had subsequently then pursued classical studies in Paris, and English law at the Inner Temple in London.

In 1765, Carroll was presented with a 10,000-acre tract of land in Frederick County by his father, which Carroll dubbed Carrollton, located at the confluence of the Patapsco River’s North and West Branches. 

On June 5, 1768, Carroll married his 18-year-old first cousin, Mary Darnall. The couple had seven children, only three of whom survived beyond infancy.  

The Carrolls resided at Doughoragan Manor (3500 Manor Lane) in Ellicott City, Howard County, where it remains in the Carroll family to this day. The manor house had been built in 1735 by Charles Carroll II.

The Road to Insurrection

In 1774, Charles Carroll served on the Maryland Convention and on the Committee of Correspondence, which in 1775 evolved into the Council of Safety, in the immediate wake of the initiation of the war breaking out with England, according to the Archives of Maryland, Biographical Series.

The Revolutionary War, also known as the American War of Independence, was initiated on April 19, 1775, the result of the engagements of the American and British forces in the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts.  

In the wake of the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, Carroll traveled to Philadelphia on July 18, where, on August 2, he signed the Declaration of Independence, after having been selected as an official delegate to the Continental Congress, where he thus became one of the initial 56 delegates, representing the 13 colonies signing the document, according to the Archives of Maryland.

During 1776, Carroll had also served as a member of the committee that drafted the Maryland Constitution. In 1781, even before the culmination of the American Revolution, he was elected to the first Maryland Senate.

Post-war Life

In 1789, after Maryland ratified the United States Constitution, Carroll became one of its first U.S. Senators, resigning from that position in 1792, but continued to serve in the Maryland Senate until 1800, at which point he retired from public service altogether.

Upon the deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on July 4, 1826, Carroll became the last living signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

Carroll “played an important part in early railroad and canal building in the United States,” according to the Georgia Historical Society website (georgiahistory.com).  One of the highlights of his post-war life included laying the cornerstone of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1828, at the age of 91.

Charles Carroll died on November 14, 1832, at age 95, and was buried in the chapel at Doughoragan Manor. At the time of his death, he owned property valued at over $1,650,000 and owned some 70,000 acres of land located in Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania, according to the American Aristocracy website (americanaristocracy.com).

Mary Carroll passed away on June 10, 1782, at age 33, and was also buried in the chapel at Doughoragan Manor.