Jeremiah Phillips

Jeremiah Phillips(1812–1879) was an American Baptist missionary to the Santals under the Free Baptist Missionary Society in India.

He is credited for opening up the first educational facility for the Santals and a farming colony for the Christian Santals at Jellasore, Orissa(formerly Orissa). He also reduced the language of Santals to writing and introduced a written system of clerical administration and missionary work among Santal tribals—laying the foundation of the Bengal–Orissa Baptist Mission among the Bengali people, Odia people, and Santals.

He was born to Parley Phillips and Hannah (Crumb) Phillips on 5 January 1812 at Plainfield, New York, US. He was graduated from Hamilton Literary & Theological Institution - later changed its name to Colgate University. While at the university, Amos Sutton from the English General Baptist mission in India visited America and addressed the students of the university and several other schools inspiring Phillips and others to devote their life to missionary service. He was among the first appointees of the Free Will Baptist Foreign Mission Society, organised in 1832 in Maine, USA, for sending missionaries to India at the invitation of the General Baptist missionaries from England, working already in Orissa; accordingly, he was ordained in 1835 as a Minister and missionary to India. He married Mary Spaulding Beede, first wife, on 15 September 1835. At the age of twenty-three, he sailed along with his colleague Eli Noyes [he left India after four years], Amos Sutton, their wives, and several other missionaries [fifteen] arrived Calcutta in 1836 as missionaries under the Free Baptist missionary society in India. He and Eli Noyes were moved from Calcutta and stationed at Majurbhanj, Orissa, where the Baptists from England had already started their work among the Odia. While at the station Sambalpur, his first wife died on 3 November 1837. Sambalpur station was given up in 1828, moved to Balasore station, and later to Jellasore station in 1840. In 1839, he married Mary Ann[e] Grimsditch, second wife from Serampore, but she fell sick and died of fever in August 1940 at Midnapore - now in West Bengal state. Mary Ann Grimsditch bore two twin sons.

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