Lawrence Mott

{{short description|American novelist}}

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Jordan Lawrence Mott IV (1881–1931), often referred to as Jordan Lawrence Mott III and better known as Lawrence Mott, was an American novelist and writer on the outdoor life. He was the great-grandson of Jordan L. Mott (born 1799), who founded the J. L. Mott Iron Works in New York City. His grandfather was Jordan Lawrence Mott II (November 10, 1829 – July 26, 1915), and his father was Jordan Lawrence Mott III (May 13, 1857 – January 7, 1932).{{cite web |url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dav4is/ODTs/MOTT.shtml#~MOTT |title=Descendants of George Mott (1572—1615) |work=Mott families 1572-1989 |accessdate=October 18, 2009}}{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1932/01/08/archives/jordan-l-mott-dies-on-yacht-cruise-is-victim-of-a-heart-attack-at.html |title=Jordan L. Mott Dies on Yacht Cruise |work=The New York Times |date=January 8, 1932 |access-date=April 22, 2025}}

After graduating from Harvard, Mott worked as a journalist, and married Carolyn Pitkin (1881–1967). In 1912 he sailed to China on a freighter, the Indrade, with opera singer, Mrs. Francis Hewitt Bowne: he was listed as purser and she was disguised as a cabin boy. Lawrence and Francis were living in Hong Kong when his father disinherited him. When World War One broke out, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was commissioned Major. After the war, the couple moved to Santa Catalina Island, California where Lawrence wrote and became an early radio personality.{{cite web |title=Steamboat history |url=https://www.thesteamboatinn.com/history |website=Steamboat Inn |access-date=March 29, 2022}} The couple married in 1928 after their respective partners had divorced them.{{cite web |url=http://www.invention.smithsonian.org/resources/MIND_Repository_Details.aspx?rep_id=662 |title=Mott Family Papers, 1840-1954 |work=The Lemelson Centre for the Study of Invention and Innovation |accessdate=July 18, 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20100805200859/http%3A//invention.smithsonian.org/resources/MIND_Repository_Details.aspx?rep_id%3D662 |archivedate=August 5, 2010}} - note that this gives an incorrect death date of "c.1913" for JLMott III{{cite news |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846915,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081215014712/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846915,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=December 15, 2008 |title=Milestones, Jun. 15, 1931: Died, Major Jordan Lawrence Mott |work=Time |access-date=July 18, 2009 |date=June 15, 1931}}{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19310604&id=T8sLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=glQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5446,1816562 |title=Death Ends Life of Romance for Man Who Left $25,000,000 for love |date=June 4, 1931 |work=The Evening Independent |accessdate=July 18, 2009 |via=Google News}}{{cite news |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/06/01/100536483.pdf |title=Mott and actress reach Gibraltar |date=June 1, 1912 |work=The New York Times |accessdate=July 18, 2009}} His published works include Jules of the Great Heart: "free" trapper and outlaw in the Hudson Bay region in the early days (1905),{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/julesofgreathear00mottrich |title=Jules of the great heart (full text available online) |work=American Libraries |accessdate=July 18, 2009}} To the Credit of the Sea (1907),{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/tocreditsea00mottgoog |title=To the credit of the sea (full text available online) |work=American Libraries |accessdate=July 18, 2009}} The White Darkness, and other stories of the Great North-West (1907),{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/whitedarknessand00mottiala |title=The White Darkness (full text available online) |work=American Libraries |accessdate=July 18, 2009}} and Prairie, Snow and Sea (1910).{{cite web |url=http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/RXP8ADIA5VHH6RTFICJFJ2VF644MLBRSRSES58YYG4D4D7NLBM-17917?func=find-acc&acc_sequence=024387672 |title=Catalogue records |work=British Library |accessdate=July 18, 2009}} He pioneered fishing for steelhead on the North Umpqua River, Oregon, and a bridge and a section of the North Umpqua Trail bears the name Mott in his memory. His love of the outdoor life led him to campaign for the conservation of wildlife and natural resources. He established a fishing camp near Steamboat Creek, where he died, of leukemia, in 1931.{{cite web |url=http://www.northumpqua.org/river/mott.html |title=Pioneers and legends; Jordan Lawrence Mott III |last=Berryman |first=Jack W |work=The North Umpqua Foundation |accessdate=July 18, 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20040605190938/http://www.northumpqua.org/river/mott.html |archivedate=June 5, 2004}} - reproduced from Northwest Fly Fishing