Anyone else have Mott in their database?
My "brickwall" is Thomas Jefferson Mott, b. 1837 possibly in New Hanover County North Carolina but I think we may have made a mistake. I've been stuck on this for 15 years!!
I believe that he was a civilian blockade runner in the Civil War. He had a ship, or his partner had a ship, that ran from Jacksonville, FL to Nassau, Bahamas to New Jersey/New York in 1865 - 1867. If that's not blockade running, I don't know what is! His partner was Capt. James Titus who died aboard ship running for New Jersey in 1865.
He met his second wife in Nassau, Bahamas, the daughter of a British plantation owner. Her name was Charlotte Euterpia Roker. Their family owned Al Roker's family once upon a time!
A twist is that Charlotte was married to Capt. Titus at the time! After Titus's death, with a young daughter, she married T.J. Mott. Another twist, Mott had a wife in New Jersey, where son Kennon was born. Since he sympathized with the South she must have divorced him, but that doesn't explain how Kennon came to be with his father and not his mother.
During Reconstruction the Mott family lost everything and T.J. Mott became a sign painter, his elder son Kennon an optometrist, T.J. Jr a car salesman, and two daughters married fairly well (a physician and a businessman) and scattered. Kennon eventually went to Atlanta where Kennon Mott III and IV (or is it IV and V?) now live.
As far as the senior T.J. Mott, we have absolutely no clue as to where he came from as there is no record of him on any census. To complicate matters further, there is a Thomas Jefferson Mott in the same period in Schley County Georgia (Don't even think about it, wrong dates/places!)
Charlotte died at age 57 almost 2 years after the Great Jacksonville Fire, in Oct.1902. T.J. Mott died in 1917 and I'm looking for an obit now. We have eliminated links to the New Hanover County NC Motts, the New York Motts and the Charleston SC Motts. There is a chance that he could be descended from the de la Mottes of France. His father may have come ashore in the Cape Fear/Wilmington area about 1825 or so. Just a guess.
I'm open to suggestions or even wild guesses at this point!! The only thing I love more than a good mystery is solving a good mystery!
Anyone here game for a goose chase!?
Thanks for reading my genealogy woes!!
Tracey
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