1803–1817

The family of the miracle morning

The Bilderbecks of the 1803 account — the European resident Savarimuthu Pillai had come to visit, and Henriette who examined the statue — were flesh and blood, and modern scholarship can now name the household: Christopher Bilderbeck, born about 1758, a merchant of European descent who settled at Vadakkankulam late in the eighteenth century and died in 1817. A son, John, was born in 1809, six years after the weeping. When John died in 1880, the journal of an English missionary society recorded of him that he was "born in India… of a Roman Catholic family, and trained for the priesthood of that Church."

DocumentedThis moment rests on 4 sources.
Trento 2022p. 285
reading as an eighteenth-century catechist 285 was immodest as [vukkiy], but married the d[aughter] of Thamma Chettiar of Sekkarakudi at Vadak. He was afterwards ubedesi of Srivaikuntam where he planted the three of the present puliantopu ["tamarind grove"]. He resigned and became a teacher (near Esalapuram) of Tharmathupuram. Finally he came to Vadakankulam where he became the accountant of Mr. Bilderbeck. Caught by fever at Puliangudi (Vasudevanallur) he was brought to his father-in-law's house at Kamanayakanpatti where he died in 1767 at the age of 35. Saverimuthu P. was a learned man, tall in stature, fair in appearance, of great faith--writer & author of "Thembavani", "Sathuragarathi", "Kitteriammal ammanei" & others. His wife Madavadial, the third of the children of Thammu Chettiar, died at Thuttampatti.25 This account shows that the geographical contours of Cavarimuttu's life overlapped in many ways with Beschi's missionary trajectory. He traveled to the Maravar country soon after Beschi was there to collect witnesses for Brito's inquiry, and he worked as resident catechist (vcal upatci) at Kmanyakkapatti, where Beschi began his missionary career. Finally, towards the end of his life, Cavarimuttu worked as secretary of a certain Mr. Bilderbeck. While the chronology given by Arpudam is coherent with that found in Caverirya Piai's family history, it does not map exactly onto the admittedly little information available on Mr. Bilderbeck. This merchant, Christopher Bilderbeck (d. 1817), father of the better-known Anglican missionary John Bilderbeck (18091880), likely settled in Vaakkakuam only late in the eighteenth century, considering that he was born around 1758.26 Exact dating aside, though, it is not surprising that in this context Cavarimuttu would come into contact with Beschi's literary works. But what does the last sentence of the passage mean? How could Cavarimuttu be "writer & author" of most of Beschi's poems? The answer becomes obvious when reading another short note in the Arpudam manuscript, clearly referring to the relationship between a manuscript and its owner, rather than a text and its author: 25 Arpudam, A Genealogical Study, 124. 26 Yv Tvacakya, Upatciyar cavariryapiai, 77 contains a short notice on Mr. Bilderback saying that he had no children from his wife, only from his Indian mistress, but still raised them like Europeans. On his approximate date of birth, see the webpage: http:// www.vincematthews.plus.com/family/bild01.htm (consulted on 16/09/2021). His first son John Bilderbeck (18091880) became and Anglican pastor, and his obituary can be found in K. et al., Church missionary intelligencer record. A monthly journal of missionary information, vol. 5 (London: Church missionary house, 1880), 512513.
285

Writing Tamil CatholicismBrill, 2022 — open access

Still in copyright. We quote a short passage with attribution, as the law allows, and do not reproduce the page.

What this source establishes

The identification: the village's Mr Bilderbeck is the merchant Christopher Bilderbeck (born about 1758, died 1817), who likely settled at Vadakkankulam late in the eighteenth century — drawn from the 1915 Arpudam genealogical manuscript of the parish's own catechist families.