The richest man in America signed a document that could have gotten him hanged, and when someone sneered that he was safe because no one would know which Charles Carroll to come for, he picked up the pen and told the British exactly where to find him.
His name was Charles Carroll, and the colonies were crawling with men who shared it. His own father was Charles Carroll of Annapolis. So when the Declaration of Independence came to him for signing in 1776, a delegate made a cruel little joke. He said Carroll risked nothing by signing. There were so many Charles Carrolls that the King's men would never know which one to hang.
Carroll didn't argue. He leaned over the page and added three words to his signature: "of Carrollton." The name of his estate. His address. He was the only signer in the entire room who wrote down where he lived, and he did it on purpose, so that if the British wanted to come hang the traitor, they would know exactly which door to knock on.
That is who Charles Carroll of Carrollton was.
Here is what makes the moment even sharper. He was not a man with little to lose. He was the single wealthiest man in the thirteen colonies and the largest private landowner among them. While George Washington and John Hancock get talked about as rich men, it was Carroll who topped them all. When he signed, he was wagering the biggest personal fortune in America against a noose.
And he was the last man anyone would have expected to be there at all. Carroll was Catholic. In colonial Maryland, a colony founded as a Catholic refuge that had since turned on its own, Catholics could not vote. They could not hold public office. They could not worship in public. The most educated, wealthiest man in America was, in the eyes of the law, a second-class subject barred from the very government he was helping to create. He had spent seventeen years being educated by Jesuits in France and spoke five languages fluently, and back home he still could not legally cast a ballot.
So he became the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, putting his name on a revolution that he hoped would build a country with room for men like him. That was its own enormous bet, made by a man the existing system had already shut out.
Then he simply outlived everyone.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same astonishing day, July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the Declaration. When they were gone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the last living signer left on earth. For six more years he was the final human link to that room in Philadelphia, the last hand that had signed, a living relic of the founding that ordinary Americans traveled to see and shake.
He finally died in November 1832 at the age of ninety-five, fifty-six years after he wrote his address on a treason document and dared the empire to come find him.
The richest man in America. The only Catholic. The last one standing. He had more to lose than any of them, every legal reason to stay quiet, and he signed his full address anyway.
We remember the names we were handed in school. We forget the man who made sure his couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's.
Which Founding Father do you think history shortchanged the most?
@nickfshort@hoyer_kat What became of Arthur and Rosa Schmidt? Any idea when the hotel ceased operations? I see you mention it appears to be apartments currently.
I really should pick up this book.
Today, we honor the life, service & sacrifice of Boston Firefighter Bobby Kilduff. BK was not just a colleague when I was at PFFM, but a friend. Sending love & strength to his family, his firefighting family & all whose lives he touched. #mapoli
05/23/2026 10:40AM Caller from South/Pleasant Street reports male party wearing camo clothing and possibly carrying a bazooka in the area. Officer reports male is landscaper with leaf blower.
Any of my followers from North Carolina, Raleigh?
I have a refugee with 38 years experience as a Mechanic. He works on the Big machines. Caterpillar, but he also wants to work in the RV's industry. He loves North Carolina and does not want to move from there. His wife and son have jobs already but he is struggling as they want him to have personal tools and a personal vehicle to do the job, they haven't been there that long and he kind of needs a job to get the car and the tools. So its a catch 22 for him.
Hit me up if you're from that area and want to help out. Thanks in advance.
Thank you patriots.
🫡 🇺🇸
Frank Newell spent 38 years in the military. When he came home to his family farm in North Carolina, the bluebirds were gone.
When Frank was young, the fence posts around the pastures in Warrenton were wood, and Eastern bluebirds nested in them by the hundreds. When he came home decades later, the posts had been replaced with metal. The bluebirds had nowhere to nest and were disappearing.
Bluebirds can't excavate their own nest cavities. They depend on old woodpecker holes and natural rot in dead wood, both of which vanish when a landscape gets tidied up. So Frank started building them nest boxes by hand, 25 a week, with donated lumber and a Sears table saw that lasted him 33 years.
The word spread, volunteers joined, and businesses donated wood. The Eastern Bluebird Rescue Group, which Frank founded in 1996, has now built and distributed more than 500,000 bluebird houses, sold at or below cost. Warren County is now believed to hold the largest concentration of Eastern bluebirds in the United States.
Frank Newell has since passed away, but the group he started is still going, run by his daughter and son-in-law and a few dozen volunteers.
O atacante norueguês Erling Haaland adquiriu a edição impressa de 1594 da Heimskringla, de Snorri Sturluson — a crônica mais importante da história dos reis vikings e da cristianização da Noruega por Santo Olavo II.
O exemplar, considerado o livro mais caro já vendido no país (cerca de US$ 134 mil), foi doado integralmente à biblioteca pública de Bryne, cidade natal do jogador, para exposição permanente ao público. Um gesto que une preservação do patrimônio histórico e reforço da memória cristã da Noruega.
@thesamaxe@LinusEkenstam@FedEx An excellent idea. Am beginning to think body cameras are going to become common outside of work at some point.
I need them at my work pace of work but it’ll never happen.
A bricklayer in East Yorkshire has spent 35 years putting up barn owl nest boxes on weekends. This year, the region saw 308 owlets hatch.
His name is Robert Salter. He's 56 and does bricklaying full time. In 1990, he saw a piece on the news about a man in Lincolnshire installing barn owl boxes, and decided he'd do the same. He started with five.
He now has more than 350 boxes scattered across fields, farms, outbuildings, and trees in East Yorkshire. Every June, he takes four weeks off from bricklaying and visits them with his wife Sue. Scrambling up ladders, ringing chicks, cleaning boxes, repairing the ones the weather got to. He's a licensed bird ringer for the British Trust for Ornithology.
In 2024, the region ringed 95 owlets. In 2025, the count was 308. The Barn Owl Trust says that nationally, this year was "pretty poor" for barn owl breeding, but east Yorkshire is the exception, and it's the exception because of one man with a ladder.
The barn owl population in the UK was estimated at 4,000 pairs in the mid-2000s and crashed to roughly 1,000 by the early 2010s. The species is still recovering.
Most of conservation is one person who refuses to give up.
🚨MISSING JUVENILE – MILFORD, NH – PLEASE SHARE
Jenna is 14 years old and was last seen yesterday afternoon in the Milford, NH area. She was reportedly picked up by someone driving a teal/blue sports car. She did not have permission to leave and is currently considered a runaway/missing juvenile.
She was last seen wearing a light blue T-shirt, grey shorts, black slides, and white socks.
Police have been notified and are actively looking for her. If anyone has seen Jenna, the vehicle, or has any information that may help, please contact Milford Police Department immediately. 603-249-0630