There is no record of his birth though circumstances place him as the son of Jonah Mott and Maria Austen. The 1720 date comes from his membership of the Smarden Meeting house in 1741. His second marriage in 1761 gives his age as 35, which would mean a birth date of about 1726.
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Isaac Mott by tradition was born in about 1720 at Smarden, Kent. There is no record of his birth though circumstances place him as the son of Jonah Mott and Maria Austen. The 1720 date comes from his membership of the Smarden Meeting house in 1741. His second marriage in 1761 gives his age as 35, which would mean a birth date of about 1726.
Isaac came from a family of Dissenters who were probably small farmers around the Biddenden district of Kent. Isaac was very prominent in the Baptist churches of Kent and Sussex. He was registered as a Pastor in the Church at Smarden Baptist Chapel in Kent on 7 June, 1741. He married Elizabeth Harman at Cranbrook in 1746 and the next year their first son, Isaac, was born. They remained in Cranbrook for ten years, though in 1749 he was paid £30 for a two-year ministry assisting the small Baptist community on the Isle of Wight. On his return to Cranbrook two more sons were born, John and Jonah. In 1756 he was appointed co-Pastor at Chichester Baptist Chapel. It was in Chichester that his fourth son, William, was born. Not long after William's birth, Elizabeth died. She was buried in Chichester in 1759, leaving Isaac with four young sons ranging in age from twelve to one.
In his will, Isaac gave his occupation as mercer. The role of Baptist preacher was not a professional appointment and it was necessary for preachers to earn a living in another occupation. Cranbrook was important in the cloth trade of southern England and the Harmans were successful cloth merchants in the town. This set Isaac up in his business which provided sufficient income to provide for and educate a large family.
Isaac married again two years after Elizabeth's death. He was still in Chichester but his new wife, Sarah CHATFIELD, was from a prominent Ditchling Baptist family. Sarah's grandfather, Robert CHATFIELD, was instrumental in building the first Meeting House in Ditchling. Sarah was 23 at their marriage in 1761 and Isaac was about 20 years older. In 1764 Isaac was invited to minister in Ditchling "by the request of Michael Chatfield and Thomas Wood". Michael Chatfield was Sarah's uncle and Thomas Wood his son-in-law, married to his daughter Lucy. They remained in Ditchling for about ten years. Isaac and Sarah had six children. Nothing is known about two of them, Chatfield and Joseph. A daughter, Sarah, was buried in Ditchling in January 1786.
In 1775 Isaac is recorded as living in Cuckfield while holding freehold land at Ditchling occupied by Benjamin Davis. It was in Cuckfield that Isaac died in 1779, at the age of 59. By this time, his first family with Elizabeth Harman were grown up and had moved away. His second family with Sarah Chatfield were still quite young, with the youngest, Mary, only seven. It's likely they were looked after with help from Sarah's family in Ditchling. Sarah died in 1791.