BRITISH GRAVES IDENTIFIED IN THE DUTCH CEMETERY OF FORT COCHIN (FORT KOCHI)

When one hears about a 'Dutch Cemetery', what comes to mind is a graveyard meant specifically for the Dutch people. Ironically, today, in the 'Dutch Cemetery' of Fort Cochin there are more identifiable British funerary monuments than the Dutch graves. Although, the cemetery began as a Dutch graveyard in 1724, soon after the British conquest of Cochin in 1795, it became the final resting place of the English elite and their family members too. Only after the mid-19th century, the British had a separate cemetery in Cochin. The new British cemetery is in a place just outside Fort Cochin called Veli today. In a previous post, I described about three English graves in the Dutch cemetery. After I had the opportunity to access the graveyard, the whole area was scanned more elaborately. To the best of my knowledge, no studies have been conducted so far to document the current status of British funerary monuments in the Dutch cemetery of Fort Cochin. I have identified a total 12 British funerary monuments inside the cemetery (including the three previously mentioned). In addition, there are two graves that have not been determined as of now, but we know they are British from the rudimentary English inscriptions left over them.  Thus, a total 14 tombs in the Dutch cemetery can be taken as British with certainty. 

British Indian Army Officer and orientalist, Thomas Walters Venn gives a first hand information on the funerary monuments in the Dutch cemetery. Through-out this study, I will be depending heavily on two of his important works on Cochin, published in 1947 and 1950, respectively. The one major drawback of course is that, most of the tombs discussed by Venn lack epitaphs today or the inscriptions on them  are obliterated. Nevertheless, using the vital clues provided by Venn, I am proposing a few more graves in the Dutch cemetery that can be classified as British.

A few interesting notes on the extant, identifiable British graves in the Dutch Cemetery: 

• There are 14 graves in the Dutch cemetery with English inscriptions.
  
• The oldest grave with an English epitaph is for a Dutch woman who married a British Captain, and it is dated 1796.
• The oldest recognizable tomb for an British native is that of a 28 year old Captain, and it is dated 1815.
  
• The youngest buried is a 3 year old girl, who is the daughter of a British Captain.
• The oldest British interred is a Major, aged 82 years. 
• The tallest funerary monument in the Dutch cemetery is also British (see here). 
• The latest identifiable British grave in the cemetery is from 1906. 

 

The 14 identified British graves in the cemetery are as follows:

1.    Maria Elizabeth de Graff (d. 06/1796, Aged 23)

2.    Charles Biddulph (d. 04/1815, Aged 28)

3.    Sarah Wilhelmina Ives (d. 04/1820, Aged 3)

4.    Maria Evans (d. 07/1822, Aged 23)

5.    Arthur Frith (d. 04/1824, Aged 57)

6.    James Tate (d. 03/1827, Aged 75)

7.    Peter Winckler (d. 1842, Aged 78)

8.    Catherine E. Daly (d. 05/1844, Aged 12)

9.    Sarah Lascelles (d. 03/1845, Aged 33)

10.    Montague Ross Taynton (d. 10/1845, Aged 42)

11.    William Hamilton (d. 01/1882, Aged 72 or 82)

12.    Alice Elizabeth (d. 04/1906, Aged 32)

13.    Anonymous 1

14.    Anonymous 2

IDENTIFIABLE DUTCH GRAVES IN THE DUTCH CEMETERY, FORT COCHIN (FORT KOCHI)

In this post, I will upload photographs from the Dutch cemetery of Fort Cochin. The focus will be on the known Dutch graves alone. It has to be remembered, although the cemetery has 104 grave monuments, only 13 Dutch inscriptions have survived (sharedcemeteries.net)! Excluding a few other tombstones with English epitaphs, the majority of the graves remain anonymous as their inscriptions  are lost irrecoverably. In an earlier post, I had discussed in detail about these tombs and their locations inside the cemetery. However, I took all those images outside the boundary walls of the cemetery, as it is generally not open to visitors. For the first time I had the opportunity to access the Dutch cemetery of Fort Cochin. I extend my sincere gratitude to Rev. Kurian Peter, Vicar and Chairman of the St Francis CSI Church, Fort Cochin, for not only giving me the permission to access the cemetery, but also providing complete freedom and time to explore the grave monuments. I was inside the cemetery for about an hour on my own, the only concern was whether the thick vegetation and the dense green carpet of creepers were hiding any poisonous reptiles.

The site sharedcemeteries.net has an excellent series of articles on Dutch monuments inside this cemetery and a map to locate them. Incorporating here are the photographs which I took inside the cemetery. All the known Dutch graves (13 nos) and the close-up views of their corresponding gravestones are included here. I hope readers would now get a better understanding of the Dutch monuments.

The 13 Dutch funerary monuments uploaded in the ascending chronological order (oldest to youngest) are:  

D1) Johan Daimichen (died, 30 August, 1784)
D2) Aletta Augustina Thiel (died, 20 November, 1784)
D3) Jacob Bernard Weinsheimer (died, 1 March, 1790)
D4) Johannes van Blankenberg (died, 2 April, 1794)
D5) Johan Adam Cellarius  (died, 15 June, 1796)
D6) Adriaan Poolvliet (died 10 September, 1799)
D7) C & C (died, 14 October, 1799)
D8) Dorothea Lambertina Zeijsig (died, 10 November, 1800)
D9) Cornelia Elisabeth Vogt (died, 11 February, 1804)
D10) Samuel Homans (died, 1808)
D11) Helena Elizabeth Muller (died, 12 December, 1814)
D12) Johannes Wolff and Catharina Sara Smit (died, 18 September 1815 and 15 November 1820)
D13) Unknown 82-year old

THE JOOTHAKULAM (JEW POND) OF MADAI (MADAYI) AT MADAYIPARA, KANNUR

Joothakulam or Jew Pond of Madai

 

Madayipara Plateau

Introduction

A few years ago I wrote about the legendary ‘Jew Pond’ of Kodungallur in central Kerala (see here, here, here and here). In this post, I will take you through another so-called ‘Jew Pool’, which is located in Kannur, a northern district of Kerala. Unlike the Joothakulam (Jew Pond) of Kodungallur, whose Jewish connection is long forgotten and even the name has been replaced by a modern title ‘Kunnamkulam’, the Jew Pond of north is still known as Joothakulam. The ‘Jew Tank’ of Kannur is located in the ‘Madai’ Panchayat (Village Council) near the township of Pazhayangadi (Payangadi). This pond is located on a beautiful laterite hillock named ‘Madayipara’ (i.e. Madai Rock or Madai Hill), a rich biodiversity center on the northern bank of Kuppam River, north of the city of Kannur. Spread across an area of above 700 acres, Madayipara is an ecological paradise for the nature lovers. I visited Madai way back in early March of 2016 with the main purpose of seeing the Jew Pond, and that was almost a year before I traced the Joothakulam of Kodungallur in February, 2017, so I must admit that it took me a long time to blog about this trip.

Madai-A Jewish Colony in the North Kerala?

Usually, when one refers both historically and currently to the Jewish settlements in Kerala, the area of study is essentially confined to the central districts of Kerala, i.e., Ernakulam and Thrissur. However, in this case, we are dealing with a region far away, about 300 km north of Cochin, the present-day Jewish epicentre. In comparison to the remnants of Jewish heritage in central Kerala, what is left in the northern Kerala is only sparse traces, but Joothakulam of Madai is a rare exception, and perhaps a ‘Jew Street’ in Kozhikode (Calicut) can be counted as well. What do we know about the Jewish settlement in Madai? How big was the Jewish colony in Madai? How long did the settlement flourish? What happened to the descendants of Madai Jews in Kerala? Are there any other historical relics or socio-cultural elements from Madai Jews that have survived today? These are just a few questions one might ask out of curiosity.

Jewish Madai in Early Accounts

Interestingly, Madai appears among the earliest Jewish settlements in both the Paradesi and the Malabari oral traditions (Jussay, 2005). Although, it comes in early records as a historical place, the first mention of a Jewish presence specifically at Madai is by the Portuguese writer, Duarte Barbosa. In his ‘Livro de Duarte Barbosa’ (or ‘Book of Duarte Barbosa’), originally written in Portuguese about 1510s, there is a direct reference to the Jews living in Madai. I believe it’s worth quoting two independent English translations of the passage here: