Before we begin this inspiring part of our signers of the Declaration of Independence series, I have one more note for the readers on the research involved in this series. Many of the historical accounts disagree with each other on specifics. For example some may have a person leaving a town for another in one year and others in a different year. Some may include career details in one place or another doing one one thing or another that are different than other accounts. Some of our subject signers left journals, letters and other accounts for posterity; while others left nothing, just the accounts of supporters and detractors. I have one account of a person dying in one year, but attending a gala later that same year. Details matter, however, in doing these summarized accounts of American Patriot lives going back over three centuries, I reserve the right to miss the mark in the minor details as I am working from other people’s sources and works. I consider numerous accounts before I write. I attempt to ferret through the details and determine what I believe best summarizes the truth and message learned from their lives. I also want to represent them as real people like all of us, not some gods whose actions or words cannot be questioned. After all, there is only the one I AM that holds that title.

It is now time for us to review the role of an important group of patriot trouble makers toward the British Crown. Their role is unquestioned in moving the needle toward independence for the colonists.

The Sons of Liberty

We started this series with John Hancock, a card carrying member of the Sons of Liberty if there ever was one. We can easily see how he would be associated with this loosely organized group of patriots who were antagonists to the Brits. He was proud of his role in the early days of the independence movement. To learn more about this group please read the link below.

https://www.history.com/news/sons-of-liberty-members-causes

Not much else needs said about them. You did not want to cross them, they would make your life miserable if you were an American loyalist Tory or sympathizer. They were some of the most important founding fathers of our nation. One Son of Liberty may have been the most important in the movement and I have briefly discussed him previously.

Samuel Adams

From the link above…

“The Sons’ most prominent leader was Samuel Adams, the son of a wealthy brewer who was more interested in radical rabble-rousing than commerce. Adams wrote his masters thesis at Harvard on the lawfulness of resisting British rule. While George Washington eventually led the war effort against the British, “the truth is that there might not have been a fight to begin with had it not been for the work of Sam Adams,” writes historian Les Standiford.”

Both Adams and Hancock were hated and feared by the Brits as will be discussed later in this story. Samuel Adams was so outspoken about independence that he put the world on notice while a student at Harvard, a college that was filled with loyalist students sent there by their aristocratic, Tory parents. It is no wonder that fellow average colonists who desired independence joined in with the Sons of Liberty’s exploits to push the Brits beyond their limits.

Samuel Adams was born in 1722 in Boston. He was the son of Samuel and Mary Adams, Sr. He was one of twelve children, however, only three survived past the age of three. His father was a wealthy merchant and deacon in the Puritan Church. His father became active in Boston politics and eventually rose to elected office in the MA House of Representatives. Integrity was instilled in the couple that passed to their son. Adams, Sr. was active in the town meetings and sided with the popular party, which was the precursor to the Whigs, or, Patriot party.

His parents hoped young Samuel would gravitate more toward ministry in the church, but as time passed Samuel became more involved in politics. After Harvard, Samuel became a partner in his father’s malthouse business. He was not a good businessman at all and it eventually was closed. During the period the local economy began experiencing a cash shortage. His father became involved with other business leaders in creating a local land bank that included the creation of paper currency in 1739 by using borrower mortgages as security. Most of the area citizens fully supported it, which concerned the loyalists. The aristocratic, Court Party held control over governance and used the Brits to dissolve the bank through an act of Parliament. Directors of the bank who included young Samuel’s father were held personally liable for all of the currency outstanding, which had to be repaid in gold and silver. Lawsuits continued over the years even after his father’s death. As Samuel dealt with them it remained a constant reminder to him of the untrustworthy Brits and loyalists, the Tories. It became fuel for his patriot fire.

Meanwhile Samuel’s interest and influence in politics and independence continued to grow. He was elected to a clerk position of the Boston market in 1747. To understand more about the market, Faneuil Hall, its origin and place in the American revolution, please read the link below.

https://citydays.com/places/faneuil-hall-market

At that point Samuel also assumed control over his family’s affairs when his father passed away a year later. A year after that he married Elizabeth Checkley, his pastor’s daughter. She bore them six children over the next seven years, but only two survived to adulthood. Elizabeth passed away with the stillbirth of their last child. Some years later he married Elizabeth Wells and they had no children.

As his prominence and popularity grew, in 1756 he was elected into the position of tax collector. The problem was he could not always force himself to collect taxes from some of the people. However, that did make him even more popular with the people. By 1765 the deficit in collections had risen significantly and become a governmental problem. His political opponents used it against him and by 1768 he was forced to pay a large judgment. Friends helped raise funds and a portion was written off. Yet, it did nothing to reduce his popularity with the people and the “popular party” of patriots.

The Brits had incurred huge debts in the winning of the French and Indian War. They looked to the colonies as a source of taxation to repay much of it, rationalizing their victory helped the colonies. Through the years leading up to the Declaration of Independence, Adams contested every move and interpretation taken by the Brits and loyalists. He led boycotts to counter. This led to confrontations over the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Townshends Act, and more. Many times his arguments and boycotts were successful. However, it did not stop the Brits from overreach. Finally, with the British occupation of Boston by four regiments of troops in 1768, Adams gave up any hope of reconciliation.

Adams continued to try to get the Brits to remove their regiments without full success. This culminated in the Boston Massacre of 1770 when five colonists were killed. Through his efforts this led to the remaining regiments being withdrawn from Boston even if the Brits resisted allowing trials of their murdering soldiers. In a compromise he arranged for his cousin, John Adams, to defend the accused to present a more balanced view of the hearings to both colonists and Brits. Six of the eight soldiers involved were acquitted of charges. The other two received reduced sentences for manslaughter with a simple branding on a hand.

Please note that despite many other depictions and representations, Samuel and John Adams were cousins, not brothers. They also became political opponents later in life.

The resolution of the Boston Massacre led to a “quiet” period of a couple of years. After losing an election for Register of Deeds, Samuel won another term to the MA House of Representatives. When the Brits took over the colonists’ role of paying the Governor, Lt. Governor and Superior Court Justices; Adams and supporters felt the Brits had overstepped their legal authority once again. Adams and associates devised a system of Committees of Correspondence to circulate information throughout the colony about the British activities. Loyalist Governor Hutchinson became concerned and entered into this discourse, which gave Adams an opening to make his points for the colonists and in support of independence. In mid 1773 Adams and associates seized the opportunity and published the widely circulated Boston Pamphlet that addressed colonist rights along with the past written statements from letters of the loyalist Governor to Adams. This effectively ended Hutchinson’s political career.

When Parliament passed the Tea Tax later in 1773 the colonies went into a rage due to the effect it would have on the economy of the colonies. This soon led to the often referenced Boston Tea Party and the Brits’ responses through the Coercive Acts. As they say, the rest is history; all of which Adams was in the middle of as a charismatic, rebel leader of the colonists along with John Hancock.

The events leading to the Revolutionary War began to happen at an increasing pace. After attending the First Continental Congress, Hancock and Adams decided to stay at Hancock’s Lexington home when they were informed by fellow patriots that British General Gage had been dispatched from Boston with troops for their capture. They escaped, but this move by Gage incited the American militia in Lexington and Concord to battle them in the start of the Revolutionary War.

As the Second Continental Congress met and the Declaration of Independence was introduced and signed by Adams and the others, he began a crusade against American loyalists. In a 1776 speech in Philadelphia, he went after all who sided with the Crown. “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace,” Adams said. “We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.” A few years later he pushed for exiling all loyalists as well as the payment of reparations through confiscating their properties. He considered them traitors to the America he loved.

He helped draft the Articles of Confederation and in 1781 returned to Boston where he entered state politics. He was elected to the MA Senate, Lt. Governor and later Governor for three, one year terms after Hancock passed away. He remained a man of the people and supported free education for all including women, which was considered highly controversial. He tried to return to national politics as he had concerns about the soon to be enacted Constitution, but was not successful. In the end he signed along with Hancock to ratify the Constitution, which was approved by a narrow majority in MA. His influence began to wane and he lost a vote in 1796 for a potential VP position to his cousin, John Adams, on the Thomas Jefferson ticket. He was pleased when his cousin lost a run for POTUS four years later.

At that point he retired. He and his wife had no financial issues as he had received income from his surgeon son who had served in the Revolutionary War when he passed away at age 37. The couple had always lived modestly, so they had enough. He passed away in 1803 at the age of 81 from Essential Tremors that had plagued him the last decade of his life.

Samuel Adams was a political firebrand with Puritan ethics and integrity that influenced legions of moderate colonists to embrace independence. He had been deeply influenced in his younger years during his education and from literature that held the view and belief that all people are born with specific rights and that governments exist by consent of the people. It fit his worldview as a Puritan and patriot. This was imprinted even more deeply into his being when he observed what the Brits and American Tories did to the land bank. The resulting legal hardships it caused his father and later, himself, as he handled the family affairs after his father died were never forgotten. He wanted all Americans who sought independence to be free of the oppressors.

There may never have been a Revolutionary War and our independence without patriots such as Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty.

Charles Carroll

Seemingly entering the scene of patriots as a dignified wealthy aristocrat, Charles Carroll proved to have a steely resolve that was no less strong than that of John Hancock or Samuel Adams. Given his family’s background and circumstances one would think he would have sided with the Tories or otherwise taken a life of neutral, non-commitment to patriot causes. Perhaps his learned appreciation for all things French through the years influenced his future thoughts about British rule.

Charles “Charley” Carroll was born in Annapolis, MD in 1737 into a mega wealthy plantation family. At the time of the Revolution he was likely the wealthiest of all American colonists as he inherited a fortune of land and assets that was the equivalent of $375 million even then, the equivalent of multi billions today. His father’s side descended from Irish rulers and his mother’s side was English. Since they were Catholics, he attended Jesuit prep school until age 11 when he was sent to France where he was educated by Jesuits at St. Omer, France; at seminary in Rheims; as a graduate at the College of Louis the Grande in Bourges; as well as other studies in Paris and finally, an apprenticeship in law in London. He returned to Maryland in 1765 in the middle of the rancor of the Stamp Act that he adamantly opposed. He became involved immediately as his dignified manner and intelligence helped bring order to the response. He enthusiastically joined a group of patriots and fully supported independence even if it meant armed conflict. He made himself quite clear with the quote, “Neither my millions nor my writing will settle this just cause, but the bayonet will.”

Carroll was elected to represent Maryland on the 4th of July and was too late to vote for the Declaration, however he arrived in time to sign it. Since Carroll was a common surname, he signed it Charles Carroll of Carrollton. At which time he told Hancock, “Let there be no doubt there is only one Carrollton.” Throughout the period leading up to the signing Carroll had been a tireless promoter of independence and debated frequently with great eloquence and skill from his religious and law background. He represented Maryland within the Samuel Adams promoted Committees of Correspondence. Due to his fluency in the language he was chosen along with Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and his cousin John Carroll to visit with French Canadian Catholics to seek assistance for the colonies. The effort was unsuccessful. This lack of success only strengthened his patriotic resolve.

He served on the Board of War during some of the darkest years for the colonies. He remained a staunch defender of George Washington as well as a close friend. Both were like-minded conservatives by nature from planters backgrounds and opposed the confiscation of Tory land that Samuel Adams and others proposed. They both fought against the enlistment of slaves into the army without there being adequate compensation to slave owners.

He served two years in the Continental Congress before returning to his native Maryland to assist in state government, where he was elected into the Maryland Senate and for a brief period as a U. S. Senator. He resigned the latter when he was prohibited by law from serving both roles as he much preferred serving his state. He did so in the MD Senate for nearly 25 years until retirement.

He was somewhat ambivalent about the issue of slavery. The Carroll family owned the most slaves of anybody at the start of the Revolution. He personally owned 400 – 500 at one point. Yet, he stated frequently his desire for slavery to end and even introduced a bill to gradually do so, which failed. Even with his beliefs on the issue he still did not release his own. In the later years of his life he supported and led the movement to return slaves to a free status in the nation of Liberia and other African nations.

He retired from public life and politics in 1801. He would occasionally be seen in ceremonial roles through the years. Much of his time was spent operating his many businesses. He lived the longest of all Declaration signers and passed away at age 95 in 1832.

His story could have stopped there. Most historical accounts of him do.

However, at this point in my research I noticed little had been stated about Carroll’s personal and family life in historical accounts other than his early years and his wife’s name, who passed away sometime around the end of the Revolutionary War. I searched deeper and found two sites dedicated to telling more of his personal story. The one quoted and linked below probably reveals why many historians did not go “there”…

“His family had become a wreck during his continued absences. His wife was addicted to opium before her death and his son, Charles Carroll of Homewood, soon became a miserable alcoholic. Carroll tried to intervene to save his family, but more often than not, his efforts were futile.

His record as a slave owner and early abolitionist is a testament to his faith. He sold slaves, but avoided breaking up families, and he offered weekly religious instruction. He once presented a bill in the Maryland Senate for the gradual abolition of slavery which required all slave girls to be educated and then freed at twenty-eight so they could in turn educate their husbands and children. When several proposals for abolition failed, he joined the American Colonization Society and in 1830 was elected president of that organization. Three older slaves kneeled at his bedside the night of his death, practicing the Catholic faith his religious instruction provided them.“

This was found on the other site:

On his return to Maryland in 1765, Charles Carroll was given a 10,000-acre land tract called Carrollton, located in Frederick County.  Although he would never live there, Carroll added the word “Carrollton” to his signature to distinguish himself from other Charles Carrolls. In 1768, he married his cousin, Mary “Molly” Darnall, and began major improvements to his family’s urban home and gardens in Annapolis. They had seven children, only three of whom lived to adulthood. Charles, their only son, would later live at Homewood, now located on the Baltimore campus of Johns Hopkins University.

The Carrolls were busy and gracious hosts to such dignitaries and governmental leaders as George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. The house and grounds were the scenes for many social events, “humble feasts” and after-the-races dinners. Politics kept the family busy through the Revolutionary War and in 1783, the Annapolis house and grounds were the sites of the Official State Celebration for Peace and Independence:

“Elegant and plentiful dinner provided for the celebration of Peace on Carroll’s Green; … sheep, calves, and whole ox were roasted, liquor in proportion … A convenient, extensive building was erected sufficient for the accommodations of many hundreds. Patriotic toasts were drunk, each attended with thirteen cannon.  After dinner at night, the Statehouse, a superb building, was beautifully and magnificently illuminated and an elegant entertainment given to the ladies at the ball-room …” April 24, 1783, Maryland Gazette

Conclusion

No person, even the mega wealthy, is exempt from toil, trouble, and personal issues in the struggle of living well. Charles Carroll was another legendary patriot who overcame many challenges and America was the better for it. Despite being raised in wealth, Samuel Adams battled through numerous hardships that would have destroyed lesser men and lived in very modest conditions in retirement with serious physical limitations and far less popularity.

These men, their families, and supporters serve as reminders that freedom is not free for us. Do you count yourself as a modern day Son or Daughter of Liberty? We the People need you.

God bless America.