By Haydn Brown.
Our previous blog about Jacob Mountain stated that the’ Mountain’ dynasty line was well settled in Norfolk by the middle of the 17th century – and it was seriously religious!
We also told you that their Huguenot ancestors fled from France after the Edict of Fontainebleau which was issued by Louis XIV of France on 22 October 1685; this revoked the Edict of Nantes (1598) that granted the Huguenots the right to practice their religion without persecution from the state. The family line was also directly related to Michel de Montaigne who formerly lived at Château de Montaigne, in France. From this, you will understand that the ‘Mountains’ settled in Norfolk as being ‘well connected’ – but still someway short of the wealth they once enjoyed.
By the mid-18th century Jehosaphat’s parents, namely Jacob Mountain Snr. (1710–1752) and his wife Ann (nee’ Postle) were living at Thwaite Hall on the Bungay Road, near the village of Thwaite St Mary, which remains just a short distance from the Suffolk border. Ann was the daughter of Jehoshaphat Postle, formerly of Thorpe-Next-Norwich, who purchased Colney Old Hall, near Wymondham; Postle was a Brewer and one-time chairman of the Norfolk Agricultural Association.
The 17th century house seen in the background is referred to as Colney Old Hall – it was replaced by a newer Hall a couple of miles further down the road – also Grade II listed. Photo: © Copyright Evelyn Simak
It was at Thwaite Hall where Ann, and her husband Jacob started their family; which consisted of two daughters and at least three sons, two of which are the subjects of both this blog, about Jehosaphat, and our previous blog about his younger brother, Jacob Mountain junior.
Jehosaphat Mountain himself was born at Thwaite Hall, Thwaite St Mary, Norfolk on 4 December 1745. Seven years later, in 1752, when the family had settled at West Rudham – a small village which straddles the A148 King’s Lynn to Cromer Road – his father died on the hunting field. A further seven years later, they moved from West Rudham to live near Wymondham, at the home of Jehosaphat Mountain’s uncle, from where he and his younger brother, Jacob, attended the local grammar school. Later, after the family had settled permanently in Norwich, the two brothers attended the city’s grammar school.
Jehosaphat married a Mary Leach in 1769 and had six children of his own. In 1777 he was admitted to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University as a ‘sizar’, which meant he was an undergraduate receiving financial help from the college for which he had to perform certain menial duties. Jehosaphat did not take his degree but was ordained a Deacon on 15 March 1778 and priest on 19 September 1779, both of which were at Norwich. After holding these curacies in the parishes of Quidenham and Eccles in 1778 and 1779, he moved on to Peldon, Cranworth, and Southburgh from 1779 to 1782, after which he served as rector of St Mary’s at Peldon in Essex until 1793.
In that year he was recruited to serve in Lower Canada by his brother Bishop Jacob Mountain, recently appointed to the Quebec See. Jehosaphat responded the more readily because the prospect of a good salary in Lower Canada promised to help settle a worrisome burden of debt he had. He left England on 13 Aug. 1793 in the British frigate ‘Ranger’, along with Jacob and their two maiden sisters. Jehosaphat was joined by his wife and three children; they included Salter Jehosaphat junior, their 23-year-old son who had just been made Deacon. The group of ‘Thirteen Mountains’ disembarked at Quebec on 1 November 1793 after a long voyage which involved surviving gales, and separation from their convoy which resulted in the Ranger being harassed by French corsairs. Jehosaphat then assumed the duties of assistant to David-François de Montmollin, rector of Quebec, in the absence of Philip Toosey who was in England from 1792 to 1794.
On 24 Jan. 1794 Revd. Jehosaphat Mountain was appointed assistant to Leger-Jean-Baptiste-Noël Veyssière*, Rector of Trois-Rivières, but he accompanied the Bishop Jacob on his visitation of the Canadas before taking up his post in the September. In practice, Jehosaphat replaced Veyssière in the performance of the rector’s duties, and the number of communicants rose from 4 to 18 in the year following his arrival. In early 1795 he was appointed missionary at Trois-Rivières of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The appointment added the society’s annual allowance of £50 to Jehosaphat Mountain’s salary of £150 as minister.
Although the Mountains greatly appreciated the beauty of the countryside and the salubrity of the climate at Trois-Rivières, they felt socially isolated in the overwhelmingly French-speaking Roman Catholic community and longed at first to be back in England. Jehosaphat’s hope for a rapid transfer to Montreal was dashed in 1795 when Bishop Jacob Mountain learned that the incumbency there had long since been promised to James Marmaduke Tunstall. In 1797 Jehosaphat was appointed chaplain of the troops stationed at Trois-Rivières and was named the Bishop’s official (commissary) for Lower Canada, a post which made him in effect the Bishop’s deputy, authorised to visit the clergy and to administer discipline and oaths, but not to ordain, confirm, or consecrate. The same year Jehosaphat turned down an appointment as Philip Toosey’s successor at Quebec in favour of his son Salter Jehosaphat. Mountain succeeded Veyssière at Trois-Rivières following the latter’s death on 26 May 1800. Within a few months, however, he was appointed to Christ Church, Montreal, replacing Tunstall. The following year he was granted the Lambeth degree of dd by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Jehosaphat Mountain had been at his new post in Montreal only two years when in June 1803 his church, the former Jesuit chapel, burned down. An architectural competition for the design of a new building was won by William Berczy. The contract for the church, to be built on Rue Notre-Dame on a lot granted by government, was let in January 1805, and the corner stone was laid on 21 June. By the autumn of 1805 the walls, of a rather pretentious structure in the Renaissance style, were raised and roofed in. However, work soon stopped for lack of money. The congregation included wealthy and prominent members, but the unexpectedly high costs led it to appeal to friends for funds, and in 1808 to the imperial government for £4,000 to complete the building. In a time of war with France, Westminster wished to limit its expenditures, and feared alienating the Canadians by boldly supporting the Church of England. A government grant of £4,000 was finally made, but because of a bureaucratic blunder it was not received in Montreal until 1812. The building was considerably altered before its ultimate completion in the 1820s.
Jehosaphat seems to have lived in relative comfort in Montreal, where by the time of his death he owned a house and vacant lot in the faubourg Québec and a house at Coteau-Saint-Louis; he also owned six uninhabited, uncultivated lots, totalling 1,218 acres, in the township of Wendover. When he died on 10 April 1817, an obituary in the Montreal Herald extolled his “extraordinary generosity and warmness of heart,” while at the same time admitting his “little singularities.” Mountain’s was the first funeral to be conducted in the new Christ Church.
THE END
Source:
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mountain_jehosaphat_5E.html
Thomas R. Millman, “MOUNTAIN, JEHOSAPHAT,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003.
Norfolk Tales, Myths & More! 