Chatham County GaArchives Biographies.....Motte, John Ward unknown - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 14, 2004, 12:21 am

Author: William Harden
p. 637-638

   JOHN WARD MOTTE. In the field of production of naval stores, it is safe to
say that no one man is more widely known than John Ward Motte, president of the
Producers' Naval Stores Company and very prominent in the commercial affairs of
Savannah. Mr. Motte is one of those native Southerners, who within recent years
have manifested a remarkable capacity in the promotion and conduct of great
commercial and industrial businesses amounting to genius and to them is due in
great part the renewed prosperity of the South, which is going forward with
leaps and bounds. This distinguished Savannah citizen was born at Cheraw, in
Chesterfield county, South Carolina. His paternal ancestry is of French Huguenot
origin, his forbears having located in Charleston, South Carolina, early in the
history of that city and they and their descendants have resided there for many
years. In 1889, Mr. Motte came to Savannah and this city has ever since been his
home.

   It was in the year above mentioned that Mr. Motte first became identified
with the naval stores business and his main business interests have always been
centered in the naval stores industry. He is the president of the Producers'
Naval Stores Company, one of the most prominent and successful corporations
engaged in this industry. This company is the successor to the John R. Young
Company, which in turn was the successor to the Ellis-Young Company. Mr. Motte
is also president of the Blue Creek Company, a large producing naval stores
organization operating in Florida. He is financially interested in several other
companies engaged in one way or another in the naval stores business. In
addition to these he has many other interests of wide scope and importance. He
is a director of the Savannah Bank & Trust Company, a history of which appears
elsewhere in this work. It is this company which built the splendid
fifteen-story office building at Bull and Bryan streets, perhaps the finest
structure of its kind in the South, and a source of great pride to all
Savannahians. The general offices of Mr. Motte's companies are in this building.

   Mr. Motte is vice-president and director of the board of trade and for many
years has been one of its most active and useful mernhers. He has been either at
the head of or a member of several important delegations from the board that
have accomplished great results for Savannah. It is due to the public spirited
efforts of such citizens as Mr. Motte that Savannah has become one of the
wealthiest, most prosperous and most enterprising cities of the South. He is a
man of splendid ability and the continual progress and present standing of those
enterprises with which he is identified are largely to be credited to his
experience, executive ability, engineering skill and genius in the broad
combination and concentration of applicable forces.

   The Chatham Nurseries (successors to the W. J. Stevenson Company), operating
extensive green houses and a nursery in Savannah at Dale and Waters avenues, is
fortunate in posessing Mr. Motte as president.

   Mr. Motte was for several years an active member of the Savannah Volunteer
Guards, and served with this command in the Spanish-American war. Upon his
return to the city at the termination of the conflict he became an officer of
the guards. Although eminently well fitted for the successful assumption of
public trust, he has served in but one office, namely, county commissioner of
Chatham county, to which he was elected in 1906 and re-elected in 1910.

   He is a prominent club man, belonging to the Oglethorpe Club, the Savannah
Yacht Club, the Masonic order, the Elks and other social and fraternal
organizations.


Additional Comments:
From:

A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME I
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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