Bishop John Carroll was the first American bishop and the founder of Georgetown University. He was a member of the prominent Carroll family -- his brother Daniel owned most of the land where the Capitol is now located and his brother, "Charles Carroll of Carollton", signed the Declaration of Independence.

James M. Goode, in his book The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, notes that this statue has always been subjected to pranks by the local college students. One of the more popular, placing a chamberpot beneath the statue's chair, led the university to fill in that area with a stack of books and a sign in front of the statue now asks visitors not to harm the statue.

The statue appears briefly in an early scene of the DC movie, The Exorcist, when the character Chris MacNeil (played by Ellyn Burstyn) acts a scene from her movie filmed in front of Healy Hall.