Eleanor Darnall was born about 1703, probably at the Woodyard, the Darnall home in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Her parents were Anne Digges and Henry Darnall II, both from prominent, landholding families. Her father held several governmental offices.

Eleanor’s family was Catholic and, because Catholics were not allowed to be educated or practice their religion publicly in Maryland, she, like some children in other Catholic families, was sent overseas for her education. It is not known how young Eleanor was when she made the long journey to Liege where she would be educated by the Sepulchrine nuns in their convent school. Attending the same school were her first cousins, Mary and Eleanor Carroll, daughters of Charles Carroll the Settler.

After finishing her education in France and returning home, Eleanor married Daniel Carroll, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, about 1727. Daniel was born in Ireland in 1696, the son of Keane Carroll. Daniel was also a large landholder as well as a merchant - what we might call an international trader. Daniel and Eleanor’s home was known as Carroll Manor and seven children were born there: Henry, who drowned when young; Daniel, signer of both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution; Ann Carroll, who married Robert Brent of Stafford County, Virginia; John Carroll, the first archbishop in the United States; Eleanor Carroll, who married William Brent of Virginia; Mary Carroll, who married Notley Rozier Young; and Elizabeth. Both sons, Daniel and John, received their education away from home, Daniel at St. Omer, a Jesuit college in France, and John, first at the Bohemia Academy in Cecil, Maryland, and then at St. Omer.

Daniel died at home in 1751 leaving Eleanor with young children still to raise. Her son John continued his studies in France, joining the Jesuit Order, finally returning to Maryland when the Pope suppressed the Order in 1773. He lived with his mother and held mass in her home in Rock Creek and eventually in the chapel that his mother had built on the property in what is now Forest Glen. This was the Rock Creek Mission and John’s church and parish were called St. John the Evangelist. Both his mother and his brother Daniel were generous in support of his work.

The original chapel is gone now but a replica was built later on. It stands next to the cemetery, St. John the Evangelist Cemetery, or the Carroll Cemetery, where Eleanor Darnall Carroll and many other Carroll and Brent family members are buried.

Related links:
Carroll Family of Upper Marlboro, Maryland
Ann Carroll and Robert Brent
Daniel Carroll II, 1730-1796
Memorial stone for Daniel Carroll II, Forest Glen, Maryland
Carroll Cemetery, Forest Glen, Maryland
Gravestone of Eleanor Darnall Carroll, mother of Daniel Carroll II, Forest Glen, Maryland


Sources:
Faith In Art: Justus Engelhardt Kuhn’s Portrait Of Eleanor Darnall A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of The School of Continuing Studies and of The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Liberal Studies By Kathleen Orr Pomerenk, B.A. Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., April 15, 2009. Georgetown University Library, Digital Georgetown https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/553373

Geiger, Sister M. Virgina, Daniel Carroll II, One Man and His Descendants, 1730-1798 ,College of Notre Dame of Maryland, 1979.

Huffman, Ronald, Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland, A Carroll Saga, 1500-1782, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, 2000.