John Coles (1774–1848), planter, was a lifelong resident of Albemarle County and the brother of Isaac A. Coles and Edward Coles. During the War of 1812 he served as an officer in the Virginia militia. He subscribed $500 to Central College in 1817 and was a founder in the same year and treasurer, 1819–20, of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle. Coles was appointed a trustee of the newly established town of Scottsville in 1818. Two years later he was named a county school commissioner. Coles owned 111 slaves in 1840. Between 1827 and 1830 James Dinsmore built Coles’s residence called Estouteville, and Coles died there (William B. Coles, The Coles Family of Virginia [1931], 52, 56, 88–92; Woods, Albemarle description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. 1991 description ends , 172–3; Butler, Virginia Militia description begins Stuart Lee Butler, A Guide to Virginia Militia Units in the War of 1812, 1988 description ends , 44; Master List of Subscribers to Central College, [after 7 May 1817], document 5 in a group of documents on The Founding of the University of Virginia: Central College, 1816–1819, 5 May 1817; True, “Agricultural Society,” description begins Rodney H. True, “Minute Book of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918 (1921), 1:261–349 description ends 263, 284, 288; Acts of Assembly description begins Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia (cited by session; title varies over time) description ends [1817–18 sess.], 157 [22 Jan. 1818]; List of School Commissioners Appointed by the Albemarle County Court, 7 Feb. 1820 [ViU: TJP]; Lay, Architecture description begins K. Edward Lay, The Architecture of Jefferson Country: Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Virginia, 2000 description ends , 179, 318; DNA: RG 29, CS, Albemarle Co., 1810–40; Albemarle Co. Will Book, 18:425; Richmond Enquirer, 16 June 1848; gravestone inscription in Enniscorthy Cemetery, Albemarle Co.).