Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/215

 CHOATE.

CHOATE.

CHOATE, Charles Francis, lawyer, was born at Salem, Mass., May 10, 1828; son of Dr. George and Margaret M. (Hodges) Choate, and a de- S-'eiidant of John Choate, who emigrated from the western part of England in 1643, and settled in Ipswich, Mass. He was educated at the Salem Latin school, was graduated at Harvard college in 1849, and from Harvard law school in 1853. From 1850 to 1853 he was tutor of mathematics in the college. He was admitted to the bar of Bos- ton in 1854, and became an authority on railroad law^. In 1864 he was made counsel for the Boston & Maine and Old Colony railroad corporations. He was elected a director of the latter in 1873, and in 1878 was chosen president of the corpora- tion, holding also the presidency of the Old Col- ony steamboat company. He continued in the presidency of the road by annual re-election until May 1, 1893, when it was consolidated with the New York, New Haven, and Hartford railroad company. On June 13, 1893, he was chosen actuaiy of the New England trust com- pany. He received from Harvard the degree of A.M. in 1852, that of LL.B. in 1853, and from Dartmouth the degree of A.M. in 1873.

CHOATE, David, educator, was born in Che- bacco, Ipswich, Mass., Nov. 39, 1796; son of David and Miriam (Foster) Choate, and brother of Rufus Choate. He was employed as a school teacher from 1815 to 1843. He inaugurated and developed the local high school, was one of the founders of the Essex county teachers' associa- tion, and for many years its president ; was one of the trustees of the Mount Holyoke female seminary from its incorporation in 1836; was a trustee of Dummer academy, Byfield, Mass., 1840- '50; a member of the state legislature, 1839-"41, and a member of the state senate and chairman of the committee on education, 1841-'43. He was for many years justice of the peace. He wrote : An Agricultural and Geolor/ical survey of Essex County, which was published by tlie Essex county agi'icultural society, of which he was an officer and member. He died in Essex, Mass., Dec. 17, 1872.

CHOATE, Joseph Hodges, lawyer, was born at Salem, Mass., Jan. 24, 1832; son of George and Margaret M. (Hodges) Choate. He was grad- uated from Harvard college in 1852, and from the law school of that institution in 1854. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1855, and to the New York bar in 1856, after a course of study in the office of Scudder & Carter, New York. He then formed a partnership with W. H. L. Barnes, under the firm name of Barnes & Choate, so remaining until 1800, when he became a member of the firm of Evarts, Southmayd & Choate. Among the celebrated cases in which he was concerned are the Del Valle breach

of promise case, the de Cesnola libpl case, Geb- hard vs. the Canada southern railroad, Stewart vs. Huntington, and the Fitz John Porter case, in which Mr. Choate, as counsel for General Porter, secured the reversal of the decision of the original court martial. He was active in the presidential campaign in 1856 in behalf of Fre- mont, and his witty and ready speeches were heard in every Republican national campaign from that date. He was president of the state constitutional convention of 1894; a candidate befox'e the Republican legislative caucus of 1897 for US. senator; orator on the occasion of the unveiling of the statue of Rufus Choate in the Court House, Boston, Mass.; and U.S. ambassa- dor to Great Britain, appointed Jan. 11, 1899, by President McKinley. He was president of the New England society. 1867-'71 ; of the N. Y. Union League club, 187.3-'77; and of the Harvard club, 1874-78. He received the degree LL.D. from Harvard in 1888, from Ainlierst, 1889, from Cam- bridge and Edinburgh, 1900, and from Yale, 1901. CHOATE, Rufus, lawyer, was born in Ipswich, Mass., Oct. 1, 1799; son of David and Miriam (Foster) Choate, and descended from John Choate, who immigrated to Massachusetts in 1643. His father's sterling integrity' and unusual intellectual endowment marked him as a superior man, and his moth-

er"s keen perceptions, ready wit, and nati^ e dignity of bearing were remarkable. Rufus was early noted for his insati- able thirst for knowl- edge, for his tenaci- ous memory, and his extraordinary preco- city. He could re- cite whole pages of Pilgrim's Progress when he was but .six years old, and he had perused the greater part of the village library before he was ten. He entered Dartmouth col- lege at the age of sixteen, after attending the academy at New Hampton, N. H., for a term, and was graduated with the valedictory in 1819. The famous Dartmouth college case was on trial during his undergraduate days, and it was Web- ster's great speech in connection therewith that so inspired Choate as to lead to his final choice of the law as his profession. After tutoring at Dartmoiith for a year, he spent three years in Washington, D. C, studying law imder William Wirt, attorney-general of the United States in 1823 was admitted to the bar, and for five years practised at Dan vers, ]\Iass. In 1835 he was sent