 Daniel
Carroll was member of a prominent Maryland family of Irish descent.
A collateral branch was led by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer
of the Declaration of Independence. Daniel's older brother was John
Carroll, the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.
Daniel was born in 1730 at Upper Marlboro, MD.
Befitting the son of a wealthy Roman Catholic family, he studied for
6 years (1742-48) under the Jesuits at St. Omer's in Flanders. Then,
after a tour of Europe, he sailed home and soon married Eleanor
Carroll, apparently a first cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton.
Not much is known about the next two decades of his life except that
he backed the War for Independence reluctantly and remained out of
the public eye. No doubt he lived the life of a gentleman planter.
In 1781 Carroll entered the political arena.
Elected to the Continental Congress that year, he carried to
Philadelphia the news that Maryland was at last ready to accede to
the Articles of Confederation, to which he soon penned his name.
During the decade, he also began a tour in the Maryland senate that
was to span his lifetime and helped George Washington promote the
Patowmack Company, a scheme to canalize the Potomac River so as to
provide a transportation link between the East and the
trans-Appalachian West.
Carroll did not arrive at the Constitutional
Convention until July 9, but thereafter he attended quite regularly.
He spoke about 20 times during the debates and served on the
Committee on Postponed Matters. Returning to Maryland after the
convention, he campaigned for ratification of the Constitution but
was not a delegate to the state convention.
In 1789 Carroll won a seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives, where he voted for locating the Nation's Capital on
the banks of the Potomac and for Hamilton's program for the federal
assumption of state debts. In 1791 George Washington named his
friend Carroll as one of three commissioners to survey and define
the District of Columbia, where Carroll owned much land. Ill health
caused him to resign this post 4 years later, and the next year at
the age of 65 he died at his home near Rock Creek in Forest Glen,
MD. He was buried there in St. John's Catholic Cemetery. |
