Cumberland County is fortunate to have had a number of excellent photographers who left behind a fascinating visual record of Cumberland County people, places and events. Charles C. Lachman, Frank Beidel, Charles F. Himes, A. A. Line, John N. Choate, Maynard Hoover, and Clyde A. Laughlin are just a few names familiar to those who know early local photographers. Choate stands out from the others because of his association with the Carlisle Indian School during its early years. His photographs of the many facets of the school have received international attention. This article is intended to document the life and work of this outstanding Cumberland County photographer.
John Nicholas Choate was born in Windfield, Carroll County, Maryland, in 1848.1 His father, Samuel Choate (1823-1862), was a sharecropper of modest income. His mother, Elizabeth (b. 1824), bore seven children, John being the second oldest.2
On 12 August 1862 Samuel Choate enlisted in Company E of the Fourth Regiment of the Maryland Brigade. Hurried to the field to reinforce General McClellan's Army of the Potomac, the troops occupied Maryland Heights, opposite Harper's Ferry, where Choate died of disease on 1 November 1862.3 He left an estate of farm equipment and home furnishings valued at $564.64. An auction was held and his widow repurchased much of the farm equipment so that young John could continue sharecropping. 4
The next record of the family that has been found is the 1870 Census. John is listed as a farmhand living with a nearby farmer named Thomas Kelly. His older sister Elizabeth lived next door with the Dennitic family and worked in their sassafras distillery.5
Details of Choate's life from 1870 until 1875 are sketchy. When he came to Carlisle in 1875, he was prepared to open his own photography business. He also was married to the former Ella (Ellen) McKillip of Altoona. We know that Ella's brother, Edson McKillip, was also a photographer. It is a fair surmise that Choate had spent some time in the Altoona area, met his wife there, and perhaps worked as a photographer's apprentice under his brother-in-law.
That Choate moved to Carlisle in the year 1875 may be deduced from his obituary in 1902, which stated that he had been in Carlisle for 27 years. The date 1875 is also confirmed by the fact that his wife joined the First Reformed Church of Carlisle on 16 October 1875. She was admitted by certificate from St. John's Reformed Church in Martinsburg, Pennsylvania, a small town about ten miles south-east of Altoona.
Choate began business in Carlisle at the former address of Charles L. Lochman on the south-east corner of Market Square and Main Street. His earliest imprint on the back of his card mount indicates that he was a successor to the photographer, Charles Lochman, and that he preserved the negatives of both Buttorff (another early Carlisle photographer) and Lochman. Choate remained at this address only a short time. In 1876 his business address is listed as 21 West Main Street.
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