His
head was small and his hair white, rather long and silky, while his face
and forehead were seamed with wrinkles."
From the same source, and others, we glean the information that he was a
charming and courteous gentleman, that he practised early rising and
early retiring, was regular at meals, and at morning and evening prayer
in the chapel, that he took cold baths and rode horseback, and that for
several hours each day he read the Greek, Latin, English, or French
classics.
At the age of eighty-three he rode a horse in a procession in Baltimore,
carrying in one hand a copy of the Declaration of Independence; and six
years later, when by that strange freak of chance ex-Presidents Adams
and Jefferson died simultaneously on July 4, leaving Mr. Carroll the
last surviving signer of the Declaration, he took part in a memorial
parade and service in their memory. In 1826, at the age of eighty-nine,
he was elected a director of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, and
at the age of ninety he laid the foundation stone marking the
commencement of that railroad--the first important one in the United
States. We are told that at this time Mr. Carroll was erect in carriage
and that he could see and hear as well as most men. In 1832, having
lived to within five years of a full century, having been active in the
Revolution, having seen the War of 1812, he died less than thirty years
before the outbreak of the Civil War, and was buried in the chapel of
the manor house.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77