still less likely that they tell everything to their
biographers. Further still, Mr. Winthrop visited Mr. Carroll just before
the latter's death, and as he certainly did not invent the story it
seems probable that he got it from "the Signer" himself. Last, I like
the story and intend to believe it anyway--which, it occurs to me, is
the best reason of all, and the one most resembling my reason for being
more or less Episcopalian and Republican.

Latrobe tells us that Mr. Carroll was, in his old age, "a small,
attenuated old man, with a prominent nose and somewhat receding chin,
and small eyes that sparkled when he was interested in conversation. 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.

This chapel, the like of which does not, so far as I know, exist in any
other American house, is the burial place of a number of the Carrolls.
It is used to-day, regular Sunday services being held for the people of
the neighborhood. An alcove to the south of the chancel contains seats
for members of the family, and has a