Interviewees:
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Catherine Arthur
- Vice President of Collections and Chief Curator, Maryland Center for History and Culture
Maryland’s four Declaration signers are remembered by the schoolchildren’s mnemonic “Carroll Chased Paca with a Stone”: Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Samuel Chase, William Paca, and Thomas Stone. All held important public offices, with Paca serving as three-time governor. There was an inherent contradiction in these men: signatories of a document proclaiming liberty and equality while among Maryland’s largest enslavers. A slave census for Carroll’s Doughoregan Manor in Howard County enumerates more than 300 enslaved individuals.
