Carroll Marriages into Titled Nobility

Source: Sidelights on Maryland History by Hester Dorsey Richardson (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995; first published in 1913) pp. 59-61.

“There is no branch of the Carroll family in Maryland that has not been distinguished. The Carrolls of Carrollton—most notable among their representative men was the Signer; the Carrolls of the Caves had the Barrister, the Susquehanna Carrolls, Governor Thomas King Carroll; the Marlboroughs, the Archbishop. These are but the bright particular stars in a galaxy of notable men of the same name, all remotely drawing their origin from the same ancient chief. The descendants of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, have to a remarkable degree married titled foreigners.

Charles Carroll, of Homewood, the only son of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, married Harriet Chew, daughter of the notable Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, whose daughter Peggy became the wife of General John Eager Howard. Among the many foreign marriages were those of the beautiful Caton sisters, granddaughters of the Signer, who were call “the American Graces” at the English Court where they were the reigning belles and beauties.

Of these, Mary married for her second husband the (p. 60) Marquis of Wellesley, brother of the Duke of Wellington; her sister, Louise, who had first been the wife of Sir Fulton Bathurst Hersey, married secondly Francis Osbourne Godolphin D’Arcy, Marquis Carmarthen, eldest son and heir to the Duke of Leeds, and upon his succession to the same, Louise Caton became the Duchess of Leeds. The third foreign marriage was that of Elizabeth Caton to Baron Stafford, of Costessy Hall.

Emily Caton married John Lovat Mactavish, a Scotch gentleman residing in Baltimore as British Consul. To this granddaughter Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, gave Folly Hall, also known as Folly Quarter. Catherine Carroll, one of the daughters of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, married Honorable Robert Goodloe Harper, one of the most eminent lawyers of his day and member of the United States Senate from Maryland.

Among the children of Charles Carroll, of Homewood, only son of the Signer, were Elizabeth Henrietta, who married Dr. Aaron Tucker; Mary Sophia, who married Honorable Richard H. Bayard; Harriet Juliana, who married Colonel John Lee of Needwood, and Louisa, who married Isaac Rand Jackson.

Among the lineal descendants of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, who married in titled foreign families may be mentioned Louisa Carroll, who married George Cavendish Taylor, of England, nephew of Lord Waterpark, and Irish peer; Mary Louisa Carroll, who in 1886 became the bride of Comte Jean de Kergolay, of France; Anita Maria, the wife of Baron Louis de la Grange, also of France, both daughters of the Honorable John Lee Carroll, ex-Governor of Maryland.

Agnes Carroll, the daughter of Albert Henry Carroll (p. 61) and Mary Cornelia Read, is the Countess Heussenstam, of Austria, the marriage having taken place during the residence of Colonel and Mrs. James Fenner Lee at the Court of Vienna, while Colonel Lee was American Charge de Affaires."

Mass for Lady Stafford in Philadelphia

Source: The Catholic Mirror, December 27, 1862, p. 2

Solemn Requiem--On Monday morning last, Right Reverend Bishop Wood celebrated a Solemn Mass, at the Cathedral Chapel, for the peaceful repose of the soul of Lady Elizabeth Stafford, whose death, in England, we recorded in our number for December 6. . . . (Four priests officiated, and a number of Seminarians from both Maryland and Pennsylvania were present.) . . . . The altar was draped in black, and in front of it, in the central aisle, was erected a catafalque, flanked by burning tapers. At the conclusion of the service, the Right Rev. Bishop addressed a few words to the congregation on the character of the deceased, and on her liberality towards the Theological Seminary of the Diocese.
He said that the Scriptures enjoined us to pray for the dead. We do pray for the dead as a duty of charity, for it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for them, that they may be loosed from their sins. We may also pray as a duty of gratitude, and such it was in the present instance. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass had been offered up for the repose of the soul of Lady Elizabeth Stafford, a granddaughter of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, one who stands in the first rank among American Catholics. While yet in health, with more than usual wisdom, she gave what she intended to give, not trusting to a will, that, after her death might be set aside or nullified. She gave it as a free girt, without any solicitation, inspired, no doubt, to do so by God, and piously corresponding with His inspiration. The gift consisted of a large tract of land in the southern part of the diocese of Pennsylvania. She dedicated it to the service of St. Charles' Theological Seminary, and from it, after the lapse of a few years, the Rt. Rev. Bishop hoped to derive many benefits.
He had the pleasure of seeing Lady Stafford when last in Europe. She was a perfect model of a good Christian lady; humble as a child, and full of respect and veneration for the Church and its ministers. Patient to the last degree under her sufferings from the debilitating chronic disease that terminated her life, she received him, although suffering from the effects of the disease, with a smiling welcome. She was glad to see one from the seat of her benefaction; she was glad to hear of the progress of the Faith in the country of her birth. As a benefactress, he thought it not just to her memory, but to her soul, that a Mass should be solemnized for her eternal repose.

Death of Lady Stafford (grandaughter of the Signer)

Source: The Catholic Mirror, November 22, 1862, p. 5, copied from the London Weekly Register.

Letters received by the English steamer of this week have brought intelligence of the death of Lady Stafford, at the summer residence of her sister, the Duchess of Leeds, at St. Leonard’s-on-the-Sea. She was the second daughter of the late Richard Caton, Esq., and granddaughter of Charles Carroll of Carrollton. She has lived abroad for nearly fifty years, holding a high position in English society, honored and beloved by all who knew her. What is best to say of her, she never forgot in the midst of the world the duties and obligations of her religion, and closed her long life of seventy years, strengthened and consoled by the holy sacraments she knew so well how to appreciate. Within the last few years she has not only contributed very largely to the foundation of charitable and religious establishments in England, but also made princely donations to similar works in her native country. One among the others we shall soon see in our own city--a charity hospital for the poor. My God reward her generosity in heaven!

Bertrand de Kergolay decorated as War Hero in French Army

Source: The Washington Post, February 12, 1915, p. 7.

Baron de la Grange and Bertrand Kergolay in German detention camp, 1917

Source: New York Times, November 28, 1917, p. 2.

Marriage of Mlle. de la Grange in 1908

Source: The Washington Post, August 25, 1908, p. 7.

Baron de la Grange Marriage During World War I

Baron Amaury de la Grange was the nephew of Baron Louis de la Grange and his wife, the former Anita Carroll, daughter of John Lee Carroll.

Source: The Washington Post, December 17, 1916, p. MT5.

Headline: The Romances of Rich American War Nurses: Proof that Pity Is, Akin to Love and That Cupid Finds an Easy Way Into Hearts Softend by Sympahty In These Recent Weddings of Ministering Heiresses and the War Heroes They Have Helped Back to Life and Health.

"Cupid, with the wireless of love, has linked the trenches of Champagne, the Somme and the Dardanelles to the mansions of Fifth avenue and Wahsington. Thanks to him, the romance of the great war has become international. Through him the United States is paying back some of the millions of profits ahta have come to it because of Europe's travail.. . .
In these alliances there is none of the sordid barter and sale, on the one hand, for money to replenish empty coffers, and on the other for a title, which have marred so many marriages between wealthy American women and fortune-hunting counts and dukes.
Take, for example, the romance of Emily Sloane, whose marriage a little mroe than a year agao was food for wonder in the social worlds of New York and Paris. The daughter of Henry T. Sloane, of New York, and the sister of Mrs. William Earl Dodge, who has just obtained a divorce, had been thought to have renounced all ideas of wedlock. With her sister she is heir to an estate whose value is estimated at $20,000,000. Fortune hunters and sincere admirers on two continents, in New York and Paris, had laid siege to her heart prior to 1914, but she evinced no more than ordinary interest, no matter how eligible they were.
Her early life had been saddened and embittered by the marital unhappiness of her father and mother, who were divorced, the latter becoming the wife of Perry Belmont, and among the families with which she had been intimate there was more than one which had a skeleton in the closet in the form of an unhappy international marriage which had been built on the quicksands of ambition for social presitge and need of wealth. She devoted her time chiefy to philanthropic and charitable work, although not by any means foregoing social diversions.
She was as well known in the solons of the American colony in Paris as in the villas of Lenox and the town houses of New York, and it was not unnatural that when the war broke out her sympathies should turn to France. She was foremost in the work of organizing the Lafayette fund, through which the society women of New York raised money for the manufacture of comfort kits to be sent to French soldiers.
As secretary of the organization Miss Sloane not only raised money, but herself packed kit bags, and following the rule of the organization, inclosed in them a slip bearing her name as the sender.
One of the Lafayette kit bags sent from New York fell into the hands of Baron Amaury de la Grange, lieutenant in the French army in the trenches of Champagne. He opened it and found therein a slip of paper bearing the name "Emily Sloane." The name was familiar to him. He remembered Emily Sloane as one of the talented, charming American women with whom he had danced and exchanged repartee in various social functions in the salons of Paris. Their acquaintance had been merely a pleasant one. He wrote to her thanking her for the kit, telling her what comfort her gift and the sentiment that called it into being gave him, and recalling their meetings in Paris.
She answered his letter and the desultory correspondence of the front, which feeds alike love, hope and fear began. His missives, written on scraps of paper, blurred by mud and water, told little of himself or his life in the trenches.
One day she read that he had been decorated with the Cross of War for carrying a wounded comrade out of a trench in the face of a murderous fire.
He won more than the Cross of War by that act. He won the heart of Emily Sloane, already at the point of capitulation! They met at last in a hospital where Miss Sloane was visiting and seminursing. And so she became the Baroness de la Grange."

Another article on the marriage said that Miss Sloane arrived Tuesday, September 15, 1915 and they married the following day. The Baron returned to the front on Sunday "to take up his service as a lieutenant aviator."

Death of Mary Louisa Carroll, Countess Jean de Kergolay

Source: New York Times, December 22, 1931, p. 23.

Obituary for the Duchess of Leeds

Death of Count von Hussenstam

Note that the Count was on the Staff of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph during World War I and thus directly contributing to the war effort against the Allies.

Agnes Carroll, Countess Heussenstamm, an enemy alien in World War I

The Congress passed a law allowing seizure of the property of any women married to either Germans or Austrians during World War I. As this article notes, Agnes Carroll was one, though I doubt that the war continued long enough for her property to be seized.

Death of the Duchess of Leeds in 1874

Mention of Marchioness Wellesley , granddaughter of Charles Carroll

Historical Context: Marianne Caton Patterson married the Marquis of Wellesley in 1825 after being widowed.

"On our return from church we went, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Bates, to pay a visit to Lady Wellesley, [2] who had been for some weeks confined by indisposition to the house.
[p. 56]
This celebrated granddaughter of Charles Carroll, [1] is still a superb woman, and although thin, and pallid, by illness, possesses the remains of great beauty and charm of manner, for which latter, she is quite conspicuous. I thought her intelligent and gentle. She made several enquiries respecting the last court drawing-room, and remarked, that not being herself able to attend, "the Duke" had sent for her inspection, the diamonds, that afterwards ornamented the dress of her niece, the Marchioness of Douro, and that Mrs. Murray was occupied from early in the morning, until the hour for going to court, in sewing on the diamonds, of the boddice alone."

Paige, Harriet Story White, 1809-1863, Diary of Harriet White Paige, June, 1839, in Daniel Webster in England: Journal of Harriette Story Paige, 1839. Gray, Edward, ed.. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1917, pp. 370.