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VOL. XXIV NO. 3, May 16-31, 2014
The forgotten harbour

Madras celebrates its 375 th birthday on August 22 nd this year. Responsible for that birth to a great extent was Francis Day who was the Factor at Armagon (Durgarayapatnam). P.J. Sanjeeva Raj offers a note on this forgotten village where the English East India Company established a factory before the founding of Madras.

Durgarayapatnam, or Durgarajapatnam, at the northern tip of the Pulicat Lake (at present a subject of controversy – MM, April 1st), is a village in Gudur Taluk, Nellore District, Andhra Pradesh. It was an English East India Company settlement for 14 years (1625-1639) and was founded by the same Francis Day who was, in 1639, to be a co-founder of Madraspatnam or Chennapatnam.

In 1625, Francis Day and three other Englishmen, sent out from Masulipatam to establish a new foothold for trade, landed at Durgarayapatnam and sent for the leaders of the village, Gurava Naidu, the headman, and Patnaswamula Arumugam Mudaliyar, the accountant, and told them that they wished to buy a piece of land to build a fort. Aurmugam Mudaliyar wanted to know how much land was needed. Thereupon, the Englishmen landed a cannon and fired a shot in a westerly direction and said, “as much land as this shot has traversed!” (a criterion, perhaps, based on the necessity to ward off an enemy attack). The land belonged to Venkatagadi Raja, who was persuaded by Gurava Naidu and Arumugam Mudaliyar to allow the strangers to occupy a spot called Chenva Kuppam. The English built a small fort there and, in gratitude to Arumugam Mudaliyar, who had assisted them in all the transactions, called the place Armagon!

Durgarayapatnam was at the time a small coastal village of about 2500 people with no commercial activities, but with casuarina groves and salt-pans. It was highly malarial. The Armagon factory was equipped with 12 cannons and staffed with 23 English merchants and soldiers.

More significant than the founding of Armagon in 1625 was the English discovery of an excellent site for a natural harbour near Armagon. During the early 19th Century, Vice-Admiral Henry Blackwood chartered an underwater shoal (sand bank or sand bar) about six miles from Armagon and called it the Armagon Shoal. The shoal is about 10 miles long, north to south, with still (calm) waters within the shoal, about nine fathoms deep, “a practicable harbour,” as Blackwood adjudged. It was later called the Blackwood Harbour. Another narrow but detached shoal about 2.5 miles long, with a depth of 10-11 m, lies close to the northern tip of the Armagon Shoal. Blackwood recorded even the reversal of coastal monsoonal currents within the shoal. Shoals in coastal waters, like coral reefs, attract rich biodiversity and fisheries. Prior to the construction of the breakwaters for the Madras Harbour, it was much debated whether to develop the Blackwood Harbour itself, in lieu of where the Madras Harbour was established.

About seven miles south of Armagon is the deserted coastal village, Monapalem, where a lighthouse was constructed in 1853, beaming once in 20 seconds and visible upto 14 miles away. It was renovated several times but, between 1928 and 1938, it was totally closed consequent to a malarial epidemic that, strangely, killed one lighthouse keeper after another!

However, ports and harbours are not normally known to pollute any inland water bodies unless there are some effluent or waterways connecting them. If only such ecologically sensitive zones (ESZs), like the Pulicat Lake, are protected from any polluting industry in the special economic zone (SEZ) of the proposed port, Development and Environment can learn to coexist and even flourish harmoniously and symbiotically as commendable models of Sustainable Development.

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In this issue

Why low voter turn-out in City?
Madras Landmarks
Confusion on heritage Conservation
A unique 77-year-old Tamil typewriter
The forgotten Harbour
EI mundo es un Paliacate
Chennai, a far cry from Madras

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