John Carroll

During the 1842 session of the Virginia General Assembly, despite opposition, John Carroll successfully sponsored a bill partitioning Grayson County and forming a new county, thus fulfilling his campaign pledge. Local tradition holds that the controversy over the new county's name was resolved when there was agreement to honor Charles Carroll of Carrollton in Maryland, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. John Carroll's last residence, located nearby, was a plain two-story frame house with a gable roof. Carroll, born in Ireland in 1801, died in 1860 and is buried in Wytheville.