John Lee Carroll

John Lee Carroll (September 30, 1830 – February 27, 1911), a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 37th Governor of Maryland from 1876 to 1880. Early life Carroll was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Col. Charles Carroll (b. 1801) and Mary Digges Lee (b. 1800). Col. Charles Carroll was the grandson of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, (1737–1832), the only Catholic signer and longest living, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. John Lee Carroll was also a grandson of Congressman John Lee and great-grandson of Maryland's second (and seventh) Governor of Maryland, Thomas Sim Lee (1745–1819). At the age of ten, in 1840, Carroll was sent to Mount Saint Mary's College in Frederick County's Emmitsburg, where he remained for two years. He then attended Georgetown University in Georgetown, near Washington, D.C., and then the secular part of St. Mary's College, on North Paca Street in Baltimore, for another three years. Carroll then decided to enter the legal profession, and like his maternal grandfather, attended Harvard Law School of Harvard College, (now Harvard University), in Cambridge, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston for two terms. Career After finishing schooling, Carroll worked as a student lawyer for the law office of Brown and Brune in Baltimore. He was admitted to the bar in 1851. Carroll practiced law in Maryland from 1854 until 1858. He ran as a Howard County Democratic candidate for the state General Assembly in 1854, (shortly after the separation of the former Howard or Western District of Anne Arundel County and the "erection"/establishment of Howard as the 22nd of the state's 23 counties). However, Lee lost to a candidate of the newly dominant "Know Nothing" Party (also known as the American Party) during the political crises of the 1850s. Carroll then moved to New York City and while there, accepted a position as deputy clerk and United States Commissioner in the office of the clerk of the United States District Court. He stayed there until 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, when he returned to Maryland, where he then remained the rest of his life. Upon returning to Maryland, Carroll purchased "Doughoregan Manor", historic family estate in Howard County, near Ellicott City from his older brother Charles Carroll.