Choate, Rufus

Related Category: U.S. History: Biographies

1799–1859, American lawyer and Congressman, b. Essex co., Mass.; uncle of Joseph Hodges Choate. Admitted to the bar in 1823, Rufus Choate gained national reputation as a lawyer and as an orator. He served (1830–34) in the U.S. House of Representatives and sat (1841–45) in the U.S. Senate, completing the unexpired term of his friend Daniel Webster.

See biography by C. M. Fuess (1928, repr. 1970).