Petrus Uscan: After I Die Cut Out My Heart and Send It To Julfa

As I slowly transcribe all 179 pages of Petrus Uscan's will,  a couple of items have caught my attention.

The first page states:

"I Petrus Uscan desire my executors to perform the same and followth viz.

In India in the town of Madraspatnam January 19^th 1750 I made this my last will before my Creator Almighty God and my confessor and Reverend Padryes and Armenian gentlemen.

I Petrus Uscan native of Julpha descended from Armenians, at the abovementioned time do declare my faith and find myself by the Grace of God, in good health, sound senses firm memory and apprehension.

But knowing that death is certain to all mankind and having the said certainty, do now prepare myself with those things which may make my conscience easy, and give rest to my soul. I do firmly believe in the Most High Majesty of the Trinity of Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, three persons and one true God, and in all mysteries, which are Mother Catholick and Apostolic Church of Roman believes, professeth and teacheth. In which our Illuminator Saint Gregory believed and teached to his followers, in whose faith we are to believe and die orthodox and faithfull Christians and in the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Mass High Queen of the angels who conceived without sin, and is an advocate for us in heaven......."

In this detailed and meticulous Will, these points sprang out at me

(1) The European physician who was tasked with cutting out his heart, was paid 100 Pagodas.
(2) The box his heart was put in for the journey to Julfa cost 12 pagodas.
(3) And then.......he was pretty miffed at the Armenian Church for "squandering" its money, so much so, he wrote it in his Will and left them nothing bar a meagre 100 Pagodas to be given to the poor.

Here are a couple of other things that caught my eye.

On how he wanted to be buried:

"......they [his executors]  shall purchase a habit of the Franciscan Order with which habit they shall dress my corps and lay the same in a coffin........." 

Bemoaning how it was difficult sometimes for Petrus Uscan to sell his merchandise:

"......And there were two small chests of opium which lay at Madrass for several years and no one would buy them for 15 or 20 Rupees..........."

On how some men were simply not to be trusted, and he had fallen for one of them:

"....God deliver us from unexperienced and fantastical men....."

This is by far the longest and largest Armenian Will written in India and it makes for fascinating reading.

Oil painting of Petus Uscan circ 1737

Image courtesy of "New Julfa. The Armenian Churches And Other Buildings" by John Carswell.

Armenian From Madras: 1808 Sarquis Agavelly, An Indian Armenian Lost In the Passage of Time.

The small church at St. Thomas's Mount Chennai
(Madras) has been well cared for over the years.
The influence of the Armenians and the legacy
of Sarquis Agavelly can be clearly
seen in both the altar and the pulpit.

He may have passed but his legacy lives on in the 21st Century in a small quiet church in Chennai.

It would appear that it is a rather overlooked fact that a Madras Armenian built the pulpit at the church at St. Thomas's Mount, Chennai which is a national shrine.

Extracted from Sarquis Satur Agavelly’s Will dated Madras 1808:

“…….It is my will and desire that on my decease and after the performance of all the ceremonies rites ordained by the Armenian church my body to be taken to the church at St. Thomas’s Mount and there buried under the pulpit which was made by my Uncle the late Sarquis Agavelly and a tomb stone be put on my grave with proper inscription in the Armenian and Latin languages……….”

The will
The statement 
The church
The pulpit 
The grave

 Perfect genealogical provenance

The more well known and popular fact is that the Madras Armenian Petrus Woskan (aka Uscan) built the steps at St. Thomas Mount but who knew its pulpit was made by the hand of another Armenian?

The Once Flourishing Armenian Community of Madras is Now No More - 1927

Extract from: The Times of India December 17, 1927

MADRAS LETTER
VESTIGES OF A GREAT PAST

Madras, December 14.

The celebration of a Requiem Mass at St. Mary’s Armenian Church on Sunday the 11th  [December 1927] instant in honour of the General Andranik, who died in America on August 31, serves to remind us, of the existence to this day the city of a small but rapidly disappearing community of Armenians, the descendants of a once flourishing class who possessed vast wealth and made generous public benefactions.

It was a fitting tribute that this small community paid on Sunday to a great Armenian solider who did much to sustain the morale of the small and badly equipped Armenian Army during the great war.  There are many vestiges in Madras City and its suburbs of the commercial enterprise and prosperity of the Armenians and of their glorious past.  Armenian Street, in which the Church is situated, is no longer occupied by Armenians as in days of yore, but there has grown up in it numerous commercial houses and trading establishments and today it is the centre of much business activity.

In Royapuram there is an important road called Arathoon Road, named after a one-time wealthy Armenian gentleman, whose remote descendants can still be traced in Madras.  There is an important bridge on the road to St. Thomas’ Mount, near the Little Mount Church, which owes its existence to the generous benefaction of an Armenian name Petrus Uscan, who constructed it in the year 1726, and which to this day, is a standing example the substantial type of structures guilt in those early days.  The same gentleman, who possessed a markedly religious turn of mind, was responsible also for constructing the long flight of inclined planes and solid stone steps which conduct Roman Catholic pilgrims to the ancient church situated at the summit of St. Thomas’s Mount.