Shep's Place Family Tree

"Dec 29. Yesterday was a day of great joy. I had the happiness to desecrate the Ganges by baptizing the first Hindoo, viz, Krishna, and my son Felix...after the address, I administered the ordinance, first to my son, then to Krishna. At half-past four I administered the Lord's Supper; and a time of real refreshing it was."
‎[The branch of the Ganges which flows by Serampore and Calcutta is the Hooghly River (or Hoogli or Hugli)‎.]

"Their second child was Felix, born 1785. He inherited his father's rare linguistic genius, but without his steadfastness of purpose and his faculty of "plodding." Otherwise he was very fascinating. Felix was baptized in the Ganges along with Krishna, the first Hindoo convert of the Mission. In July, 1803, the first Sunday School in India was opened, under the care of Felix and his brother William and Mr. Fernandez, one of the missionaries."

"In 1807 Mardon and Chater were sent forth from Serampore as missionaries to Burmah.... Carey's eldest son, Felix, soon took the place of Mardon. He was a skilful medical missionary and a printer of Oriental languages trained under Ward."

"Felix Carey's linguistic ability and his medical skill brought him into favour with the Burmese government, by whom he was loaded with honours. But at Serampore, his father regarded these honours with little pleasure. "I fear,' he wrote, 'these honours have not been beneficial to his soul.' He adds, "It is a very distressing thing to be forced to apologise for those you love.'

"Later on, the ‎[Burmese]‎ king ennobled him and employed him as ambassador to the supreme government at Calcutta to bring some pending negotiations to a close.....In the course of his voyage, the brig in which he sailed was struck by a sudden squall and went down; he alone was saved, his wife and two children being drowned in the Irrawaddy. At the same time his MS dictionary went to the bottom and was lost. Rather than face the king, he threw himself among the wild tribes to the east of Bengal where he passed through a succession of adventures, such as are seldom known except in the pages of a romance. His father writes, 'He is, in my opinion very much sunk, and is absolutely shrivelled up as regards Divine things.'

In 1818 he was induced by Willliam Ward to return to Serampore, where his profound acquaintance with eastern philology enabled him to render valuable assistance to his father in revising his Bengali translations."

On November 2, 1821 Felix married Amelia Pope. His daughter was born on 21 October 1822, about three weeks before Felix's death on 10 November 1822. He is bured in the Serampore burial ground.

Pearce Carey:
"When Felix returned to Rangoon and heard of the king's moodiness, he feared his displeasure and fled. For three years he roamed over the frontier-borders between Burmah and Assam--exploring, botanizing, learning vernaculars, serving the Raja of Cachar, gathering and transmitting to Calcutta political information of the much-agitated tribes and peoples, and once even captaining a little force against hopelessly out-numbered Burmese raiders. Throughout the three years he kept in touch with his father, whose letters, he said, 'cheered my soul.'

Beck:
"...Felix was a gifted linguist who was very skilled in the vernacular, as is 'usually experienced by children brought up mainly by servants.'"

"In 1804 at eighteen years of age he married fifteen-year-old Margaret Kinsey. The Serampore missionaries sent young Felix and his wife off to Burma where they hoped to establish a new mission. Felix had obtained some medical training in Calcutta and was eventually able to offer small pox inoculations to the family of the king of Burma. Felix and Margaret had some struggles in Burma. "Mrs. Felix Carey had no missionary feelings and she did not like to be deprived of bread, butter, meat, etc."

"Ã?n 1807 Felix received news of his mother's death. The news hit him hard. During the next year he visited Serampore with his family. He returned to Burma alone since his wife was about to give birth to their third child. Margaret died soon after childbirth at nineteen years of age. William Carey cared for the three children ‎(Lucy, Dorothy, and William)‎ and urged his son Felix to remain a missionary in Burma. In 1811 Felix married again and had two children by his second wife. A tragic river accident took the lives of his second wife and two young children. Death stalked his footsteps. His father William wrote, "I mourn for Felix in silence, and still tremble to think what may be the next stroke. I am dumb with silence because God has done it."

Chatterjee:
"Felix was the best Bengali scholar among the Europeans living in Bengal at that time." He was proficient not only in Bengali and Burmese, but in Sanskrit and Pali."

Buckland:
" Carey, Felix ‎(1782-1822)‎
Missionary : son of the Rev. Dr. W. Carey ‎(q.v.)‎ : went with his parents to India : assisted his father in his Biblical translations : besides many translations in Bengali, he published a Burmese grammar, and began a Burmese dictionary and Pali grammar : he died at Serampur Nov. 10, 1822."

From an unidentified biographical dictionary, London, page 974:
"CAREY, FELIX ‎(1786-1822)‎, orientalist, eldest son of William Carey ‎[q.v.]‎, missionary to India, was born in 1786. He also became a missionary to India, and died at Serampur 10 Nov. 1822. He published a Burmese grammar, 1814, and left behind him materials for a Burmese dictionary, which was published in 1826. He also translated the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' and the Bible."
‎[Life of William Carey, 1836; Brit. Mus. Catalogue.]‎

Felix Carey, eldest
son of the Rev.
W. Carey, D.D., who
departed this life on the
10th of November,
1822, ‎[Aged]‎ 36
years and 20
A prisoner of
hope released