Jacob Mountain

The second son of Jacob Mountain (1710–1752), of Thwaite Hall, Norfolk, and his third wife, Ann, daughter of Jehoshaphat Postle of Colney Hall, near Wymondham, chairman of the Norfolk Agricultural Association. The first son of Jacob Sr, and Jacob's Jr.'s brother, was named Jehoshaphat Mountain.[3]

According to some sources Mountain was related to Michel de Montaigne via his great-grandfather, who also resided at Château de Montaigne, and whose family fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

The younger Jacob Mountain was born at Thwaite Hall on 1 December 1749.[4] He was educated at various Norfolk schools, including Scarning, where he was a pupil of the classicist Robert Potter (1721–1804), and at Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1774 and MA 1777.[5][6] In 1779 he was elected a fellow of his college, and, after holding the living of St Andrew's Church, Norwich, was presented to the vicarages of Holbeach, Lincolnshire, and Buckden, Huntingdonshire, which he held together. On 1 June 1788, he was installed as Castor prebendary in Lincoln Cathedral. He was consecrated at Lambeth Palace on 7 July 1793, and at the same time was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity (DD; jure dignitatis). These preferments he owed to the friendship of William Pitt the Younger, who also, on the recommendation of George Pretyman Tomline, gave him the appointment of first Anglican Bishop of Quebec in 1793.[7]

At that time there were only nine clergymen of the Church of England in The Canadas — at his death there were 61. For 30 years Mountain promoted missions and the erection of churches in all populous places, which he visited regularly, into old age.[7] He also built the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Quebec City.

Jacob Mountain died at Marchmont House, Lower Canada, 16 June 1825 and was buried under the chancel of Holy Trinity Cathedral, which also contains a monument to his memory.[7]

Mountain was effectively the head of (and directing) the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning from its creation until his death in 1825 in its goal to Anglicize the French Catholics (in order to control Quebec and French Canada) and educate the British Protestants in Upper Canada (whom Mountain saw as "ignorant" of the British and their beneficial ways). Mountain was extremely headstrong in his views that all denominations should follow the directives and policies of the Royal Institution which were designed to educate and indoctrinate Canadian-born people, but the majority of Canadians and their religious leaders rejected the elements of the Institution which were designed to oppress and murder culturally.

Mountain was effectively head of the Royal Institution as he was the Anglican Bishop of Quebec (the head of the Church of England in that diocese) and the Royal Institution at this time was responsible for the Anglicization of the Lower Canadian province as its primary goal for inception. Nonetheless, Mountain was not a Colonial Representative from the Crown so he only operated at the head of his jurisdiction, albeit with much autonomy and freedom in how to achieve the ultimate goal given from the British Parliament. However, it was largely under the tremendously meretricious efforts of Joseph Langley Mills (as the Royal Institution's Secretary) that the Royal Institution would actually come to provide any sort of compromise between the varying Canadian peoples for "inclusive education" (especially to French Canadians and other Protestant denominations not whole-heartedly in line with Anglicanism) due to practices of educational and religious segregation which were requested by the Roman Catholic Bishop in Quebec, Joseph-Octave Plessis, in order to preserve the Roman Catholic and Francophone element of Lower Canada. Mills was also largely responsible with allowing the Royal Institution to peter out and give birth to McGill University, as he was the individual involved in the lengthy legal battle with McGill's heirs (and the Desrivieres family of his wife) that saw the estate and finances to create and expand what became known as McGill University.[8]

Mountain was remembered as "imposing" and almost a "perfect" human in his physical form by many people who both heard about him and watched his pastoral work, even in his elderly age. One clergyman in 1820 when he first saw Mountain described him in way that was inclined to almost reveal homosexuality towards the Bishop on the part of the Clergyman. The Clergyman documenting that he was "struck with admiration at as perfect a specimen of the human form as I ever beheld; erect, standing above six feet, face what might be called handsome, eye mild yet penetrating, features well set and expression benevolent, limbs fully developed, and symmetry of the whole person complete." Before having met the Governor General at the time, Lord Dalhousie, the Lord had heard Mountain referred to as “a clever man, amiable in his outward manners but a lazy preacher, very haughty and imperious in society.” However, in 1820, when Dalhousie heard a sermon by Mountain that he had particularly enjoyed, Dalhousie flipped, and described Mountain as a “fine looking old Gentlemen” as “a Divine of exalted rank & of commanding abilities.” Mountain at this time was well out of his physical and mental prime, being a 70 year-old elderly man in a colonial era, in a wild, physically hostile, and essentially untouched land.

This feeling of admiration both before and upon meeting the individual also extended to Mountain's wife, Elizabeth, with the Bishop of Toronto (and an elite member of the Upper Canadian Family Compact), John Strachan, recording that Elizabeth was “in her manners amiable and engaging – in her religion sincere active and cheerful – in charity unbounded, without regard to sect or nation.” This is backed up by the various letters Elizabeth had sent out which mentioned her day-to-day domestic life, and keeping up with children and Mountain's "many illnesses."[9]

Jacob Mountain published Poetical Reveries, 1777, besides some 5 other sermons and charges.[7] A journal of one of Mountain's many episcopal tours across his tremendously large diocese has been published, “From Quebec to Niagara in 1794; diary of Bishop Jacob Mountain,” ed. A. R. Kelley, ANQ Rapport, 1959–60: 121–65.[10]

Coat of Arms of Jacob Mountain

In 1783, Jacob Mountain married Elizabeth Mildred Wale Kentish (d. 1836), daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Woolley Kentish of Little Bardfield Hall, near Braintree, Essex. The Mountains lived at Marchmont House, Quebec City, where he died, and they were the parents of six surviving children.[7]

• Jacob Henry Brooke Mountain (1788–1872) of The Heath, Hertfordshire, vicar of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire and rector of Blunham, Bedfordshire. His first wife, Frances Mingay Brooke (d. 1837), was the daughter and co-heiress of William Brooke of Swainsthorpe Hall, Norfolk. His second wife, also named Frances (d. 1876), was the daughter of John Osmond Deakin and widow of Frederick Polhill, M.P. (1798–1848), of Howbury Park, Bedfordshire.
• George Mountain (1789-1863), third Bishop of Quebec, first principal of McGill University and the founder of Bishop's University. In 1814 at Quebec City, he married Mary Hume Thomson (1789–1861), daughter of Commissary-General William Thomson of Quebec, and the aunt of Jasper Hume Nicolls, of Lennoxville, Quebec.
• George Robert Mountain (1791–1846), formerly of the 75th Regiment and afterwards rector of Havant, Hampshire. He married Katherine Hinchliff, of Mitcham, Surrey.
• Elizabeth Sarah Mountain (1793–1843), married Frederick Arabin (colonel RA), of Moyglare, County Westmeath, Ireland.
• Colonel Armine Simcoe Henry Mountain (1797–1854), adjutant-general to the forces in India and China, and aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria. His first wife was Jane O'Beirne (d. 1838), granddaughter of Thomas O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath. His second wife, Charlotte, was the daughter of Thomas Dundas of Fingask (a major-general; 1750–1794), of Carron Hall, nephew of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale. Armine's widow remarried John Henry Lefroy.
• Charlotte Mary Milnes Mountain (1801–1860), died unmarried at her brother's house in Havant.

The arms of Jacob Mountain were granted by the English Kings of Arms on 3 August 1793. He bore "Ermine on a chevron Azure between three lions rampant guardant Sable each supporting between the fore-paws an escallop erect Gules a mitre on each side a cross crosslet fitchy Argent."

• "Biography". Dictionnaire des parlementaires du Québec de 1792 à nos jours (in French). National Assembly of Quebec.
• Heraldic America
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Boase, George Clement (1894). "Mountain, Jacob". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 39. London: Smith, Elder & Co.