1803–1817
The Bilderbecks were flesh and blood, and they can be named. Christopher Bilderbeck, born about 1758, was a merchant of European descent who settled at Vadakkankulam late in the eighteenth century and died here in 1817. They were people of standing, holding the revenue-farm of Nangunery; and Henriette, who had examined the statue that morning, was his daughter. A son, John, was born in 1809, six years after the weeping; and when John died in 1880 an English missionary journal recorded of him that he had been “born in India… of a Roman Catholic family, and trained for the priesthood of that Church.” The family that stood in this church that morning left a paper trail of its own, in Protestant hands, kept by people with no reason at all to flatter a Catholic shrine.
What this source establishes
Besse’s typescript (Moumas, p.842, footnote 1) on the family’s standing: under the Nabob of Arcot the Bilderbecks had farmed the revenue (tiryais/dues) of Nangunery — revenue-farmers, which is what makes the benefactor tradition materially plausible. In copyright: quoted, not reproduced.
This is as much of the book as this site prints. It is named in full in the bibliography below.