Person:John Mott (1)

John Mott is the one figure in my family history that I have perhaps spent the most time on trying to fathom. As a young boy I had heard the family legend that this young Quaker's home had been invaded by Hessian soldiers just prior to the battle of Trenton and that John, in defending his wife and family had killed three soldiers and then left to join Washington's army, serving as a guide in the famous crossing of the Delaware and the battle of Trenton. My studies have concluded that there is probably more truth than fiction in this legend, but his exact identity has been clouded over the years by the existence of other John Motts in the New Jersey revolutionary army or militia. I have done pretty extensive research into the other John Motts living at the time, but there are more roads to explore in this matter. See the page devoted to John Mott of New Jersey in the Revolution for more discussion of the problem. In any case, his identity is clear from the minutes of the Burlington, New Jersey Quaker monthly meetings and the tax and ratetables of New Jersey in 1774, as well as his father's will. Further documentation is largely from the Mott family bible and history gathered by my great aunt. After the revolution he moved to New York state and re-married the widow Mann, adopting her son and having three children by her. Upon her death he married again, this time to Naomi Daggett, a woman 24 years his junior. Sometime in the middle of the first decade of the 19th century he moved his family from Pittstown, New York to Bridgewater, where he appears on the census of 1820. Here he should not be confused with John Mott, a Quaker who lived in North Bridgewater and who was buried in 1834 in the old Quaker cemetery there. 'My' John Mott died in 1823.

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