[2] Mott was born in Livingston Manor, Sullivan County, New York, on May 25, 1865, and his family moved to Postville, Iowa, in September of the same year.
Mott and a colleague were offered free passage on the Titanic in 1912 by a White Star Line official who was interested in their work, but they declined and took the more humble liner the SS Lapland.
According to a biography by C. Howard Hopkins, in New York City the two men heard what happened to the Titanic, looked at each other and remarked that, "The Good Lord must have more work for us to do.
"[3] After touring Europe and promoting ecumenism, Mott traveled to Asia where, from October 1912 to May 1913, he held a series of 18 regional and national conferences, including in Ceylon, India, Burma, Malaya, China, Korea and Japan.
For his labors in both missions and ecumenism, as well as for peace, some historians consider him to be "the most widely traveled and universally trusted Christian leader of his time".