CHOULES, John Overton, clergyman, born in Bristol, England, 5 February, 1801; died in New York City, 5 January, 1856. His parents were Wesleyans, but he became a member of the Baptist church in 1819. After graduation at the Baptist divinity school in Bristol, he came to the United States in 1824. He supplied various churches in the vicinity of New York City, and became in the spring of 1825 principal of an academy at Red Hook, on the Hudson. He was ordained pastor of the 2d Baptist church, Newport, Rhode Island, in September, 1827, took charge of the 1st church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1833, and of the Washington street church, Buffalo, New York, in 1837. He was settled over the Sixth street church, New York City, in 1841, at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, in 1843, and in 1847 became pastor for the second time of his old church in Newport. Dr. Choules was a personal friend of Daniel Webster, and delivered a sermon in his memory at Newport, 21 November, 1852. He had mingled with various English celebrities in his youth, and was intimate with the most cultivated public men of his day. He was very successful as a teacher, and had a few pupils under his charge at his home during most of his life. One of his specialties was old Puritan literature, of which he had a fine collection in his library. He published "Young Americans Abroad," a description of a vacation tour with his pupils, and "The Cruise of the Steam Yacht North Star," a narrative of a pleasure excursion to Europe with Cornelius Vanderbilt (Boston, 1858). He also completed Smith's "History of Missions" (2 vols., New York, 1832), continued Hinton's "History of the United States" to 1850, and edited various works.