lately opened their academy on the Eastern shore, at Bohemia Manor.
In this school two men studied who became famous in the history of America: Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and his cousin John Carroll, the first Archbishop of Baltimore. As the institutions of learning in the colonies and the great universities of England were in those days closed to Catholic pupils, those who could afford it, went to the European Continent. Thus John and Charles Carroll went to the famous Jesuit college at St. Omer in Flanders, where they won a high reputation for their brilliant scholarship. After six years study in that school, John entered the Society of Jesus. Later on he spent a series of years as professor in the colleges of St. Omer, Liège and Bruges. The suppression of the Society filled his heart with the deepest grief. He went to England, where he was received most heartily by Lord Arundell and other English noblemen. But when he saw that measures were adopted by the English government, which more and more alienated the American colonies from the sovereign and parliament of Great Britain, Father Carroll patriotically resolved to return to his native country and share its trials and fortunes. The services which he rendered to the nascent republic during the war of the Revolution, especially his mission to Canada with Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll, need not be dwelled on here.[1]
In 1784 Carroll was appointed Prefect Apostolic for the Catholics in the United States. He immediately
- ↑ See Shea, Life and Times of the Most Reverend John Carroll, ch. IV.
