சென்னை / the notes, 11 September 2026
After Madras Day I got stuck on a simple question: were we celebrating a city that began in 1639, or a British foothold on a coast that was already a set of older places?
Many places. One Chennai.
I am not a historian. I was born in Tamil Nadu, I live in San Francisco, and I use models the way I use a search bar: to help me read faster. Then I check the pages.
Madras Day is observed on 22 August. That sent me into H. D. Love's Vestiges of Old Madras (1913), Greater Chennai Corporation pages, and the Acts and G.O.s for names and units. The models also get this wrong if you let them. They will say 22 August as if it were on the paper.
I started because I wanted a picture of how the city accumulated, not a postcard. That part is unfinished, so it is not here. What is here is a short list of things that surprised me, with the source I used. If I have this wrong, I want to know.
Not a history of Chennai. Not authoritative. A citizen's notes.
Love says the village existed under that name before Cogan and Day. The 1639 grant is for "our port of Medraspatam." Forms in 1639 already include Medraspatam, Madrapatam, Maddaraspatan.
Love, Vestiges vol. I, pp. 84-87. High for the name predating the fort. archive.org
The only dated copy, and all three surviving copies (1690, 1695, 1751), read 22 July 1639. Day's covering letter is 27 July. Love guessed August because Day had not yet arrived. Madras Day follows Love. V. Sriram argued the July reading in 2023.
Love I p. 17; Sriram, "Does it matter if Madras Day is July or August 22?", 30 Aug 2023. High for the document date. August is an inference.
Sri Ranga's cowle of 1645 distinguishes "the Village of Madrasapatam" from the new town he calls his own. Neknam Khan's 1672 confirmation distinguishes Madraspatam from "the Fort and Town of Chinapatam." The British later used Madraspatam for both.
Love I pp. 82-84. High for the distinction in those grants.
Official pages repeat it. Love treated the late Mackenzie genealogy as shaky, and allowed that Chinapatam may already have been the site name. I am not picking a winner.
Love I pp. 70-83; chennai.nic.in/history. Medium. Marked as a theory.
Love: between 300 and 400 weaver families had immigrated, and the huts had given way to some seventy or eighty houses.
Love I ~p. 34; GCC Origin and Growth. Medium-high. Love's reconstruction from early letters.
The Elambore (North River) ran west of the White Town. It met the Cooum (then the Triplicane River) about three-quarters of a mile south of the fort. The Island is a cut. In the 1750s Brohier diverted the North River. The old bed west of the Fort was filled into the enlarged fort. Do not draw the present Cooum west of Fort St George in 1700.
Love I pp. 26-28; Love II p. 492. High for the two-river picture. Medium for Love's distances.
By 1695 the surf washed the east wall. In 1697 the Sea Gate was closed. Period writers say no ship could anchor within two miles. Landing was by masula and catamaran.
Love I pp. 370, 566; Lockyer via Love II p. 80. High for the sequence. Beach width in yards is not established.
The Inner Fort was a near-square of four bastions, laterite "in colour like rusty iron," about 108 yards by 100 yards salient to salient. It stood until 1714, then was replaced. St Mary's had no spire at 1700. GCC ties the name to St George's Day 1640. Love says that date is too late for the start and too early for any substantial finish.
Lockyer via Love I p. 28 and II pp. 73, 79-80; Love I pp. 84-85, 435-437. High for size and colour. Naming is a recorded conflict.
It sat on what became the northern glacis, Law College and High Court ground. The French took the southern part in the 1740s. The rest was swept for the Esplanade after 1756. George Town (the 1911 name) is the later town, from Muthialpet and Peddanaickenpet.
Love I p. 86; GCC Origin and Growth. High for the disappearance. Street-level plan is not a survey here.
Chenna Kesava stood on the later High Court site, a square of about 90 yards, endowed 1646 and 1648, demolished 1757. The present temple in Peddanaikpetta is a different building.
Love I pp. 92-93, 284. High for existence and demolition. Twin-shrine form is only a presumption.
Madras Day's founders already said the city is older than 1639. I am late to that. The notes are me catching up, with citations, so I can be corrected in public.
Vinay Chandrasekaran. Tamil Nadu-born, based in San Francisco. I build in AI. This is a hobby log, not a product and not my startup.
If a line is wrong, say so. A source I missed is more useful than a general scolding.
Corrections: message me on LinkedIn.