John Nicholas Choate was born in Winnfield, Connecticut in 1848. He moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1875 and opened his photography studio at the corner of Market Square and Main Street. In 1876 he moved his shop to 21 West Main Street, where it would remain. Choate was one of Carlisle's most prominent local photographers, taking portrait photos of local dignitaries, groups, locations, and events, as well as important visitors to Carlisle. In addition to creating portrait photographs in his shop, Choate took photographs of local landscapes, using a horse-drawn studio. In 1895 a local newspaper reported that he had been granted a patent "on a mechanical apparatus for retouching photographs. The principle depends upon the secondary vibrations of an electric battery."
He is best-known today for the hundreds of photographs he took of students from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. From the opening of the school in 1879 until his death in 1902, Choate appears to have been the preferred photographer for the school. In addition to taking photographs of the students on the school grounds and in his studio, Choate also created portraits of the many visiting Native American chiefs. Many of these photographs related to the school were widely distributed in their day.
