Rediscovering Alfred Russel Wallace: The True Location of His Ternate Residence

In February of 1858, naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace, whilst in the village of Dodinga at Halmahera Island, Indonesia, independently outlined his theory of evolution through natural selection.

Wallace then returned to his rented home on the small island of Ternate, and sent his manuscript —now known as “The Ternate Letter”— to Charles Darwin.

For nearly 80 years Wallace’s rented house has been a subject of debate, with two houses contending as candidates albeit, as this paper confirms, neither being valid. The paper written by Paul Whincup describes how a combination of new research, fieldwork, and local insight has finally pinpointed the true site of Wallace’s House at Ternate.

Wallace’s Island Workshop

Located on the small volcanic island of Ternate Indonesia, the Wallace House is renowned for its great historical significance. In 2008, Marzuki, who was then the president of the Wallace Foundation in Indonesia, considered it ‘the most important science history site in Indonesia.’

From January 1858 to January 1862, Alfred Russel Wallace was based on Ternate Island, and supported himself by collecting exotic natural history specimens and selling them to European collectors.

In 1858, while bedridden with a tropical fever on the nearby island of Halmahera, Wallace had an epiphany. Over several nights, he outlined a bold new theory — evolution by natural selection. He returned to his house on Ternate on the 1^st of March 1858, with the intention of catching the next mail boat on the 7^th of March. During these days, he may have re-written out his theory, and added a few corrections, but no one can know for sure. Wallace then posted his theory along with an accompanying letter (the famous Ternate Letter, which unfortunately was not saved) to none other than Charles Darwin.

Darwin was understandably impressed but also unsettled. In just a few pages, Wallace’s theory had captured the very idea Darwin had been researching and developing for years, but had not yet published. The result was that both Darwin and Wallace presented to the Linnean Society on the 1^st of July 1858. 

The Search for a Scientific Landmark

Interest in the location of Wallace’s house first surfaced during World War II, when Ternate was occupied by the Japanese and a Japanese engineer lived in what is now the Santiong House and advised local residents it was the house where Wallace had lived. After that it faded for more than four decades until the city of Ternate endorsed two possible sites: the so-called Sultan’s House in the 1980s, superseded by the Santiong House in 2008. However, in 2012, Wallace expert Beccaloni raised doubts, claiming that neither house matched Wallace’s own descriptions in his “Travels In The Malay Archipelago”. This prompted Paul Whincup to launch a new investigation in 2018, which ultimately led to the identification of the true site, now known as the Oranje Site.

Wallace’s Written Clues

Wallace offered this description of the house and its setting:

There is of course only one floor. The walls are of stone up to three feet high; on this are strong squared posts supporting the roof, everywhere except in the veranda filled in with the leaf-stems of the sago palm, fitted neatly in wooden framing. The floor is of stucco, and the ceilings are like the walls. The house is forty feet square consists of four rooms, a hall, and two verandas, and is surrounded by a wilderness of fruit trees.

The lower part of the mountain, behind the town of Ternate is almost entirely covered with a forest of fruit trees. A deep well supplied me with pure cold water. Five minutes’ walk down the road brought me to the market and the beach. In the opposite direction there were no more European houses between me and the mountain. Just below my house is the fort, built by the Portuguese (n.b. it’s actually a Spanish fort), below which there is an open space to the beach. Beyond this the native town extends for about a mile to the northeast. About the centre of it is the palace of the Sultan.

In hindsight, only three or four sites at the southwestern corner of Fort Oranje could have matched Wallace’s description, but early researchers overlooked this, possibly influenced by local residents.

The Misidentified Houses of Ternate

When British explorer Tim Severin visited the Sultan House in 1996 (The Spice Islands Voyage, 1999),  he noted it did not meet the dimensions detailed by Wallace, being larger and more opulent, with stone pillars rather than wooden uprights.

The Santiong House was formally accepted as the Wallace House after a presentation by Marzuki and Andilito to the International Conference on Alfred Russel Wallace in Makassar, in December 2008. The presentation by Marzuki and Andili (2015) recounted the story of the Japanese engineer, and identified two old wells, which they were “reasonably confident” were the only ones in the area. One was located at the Santiong House, facing what they referred to as the “Portuguese Fort,” and the other —later confirmed by the deep well survey— was across the road, in what would have been the European Quarter. Supporters of the Santiong House claimed that the remains of a wall opposite the Santiong House were a remnant of a Portuguese Fort, though no such structure is documented in the historical record.

The site of the Wallace House; Photo Sinclair Stammers.

View from Fort Oranje to the Oranje Site across Jln Merdeka to Jln Pipit, formerly the track used by Wallace; Photo George Beccaloni ©, 2019

Discovering the True Site of Wallace’s Ternate House

After accessing the Wallace Foundation website in September 2018, Whincup recognised the significance of the deep wells, knowing these to be long-established, and proposed that a deep well survey of the Santiong District be carried out.

Further research was conducted between October and December 2018, which drew on several key sources. One was a map outlining the Dutch Quarter, clearly showing its northern boundary aligning with the remains of the wall opposite the Santiong House thus providing conclusive proof that the wall was not part of a Portuguese Fort. Another was  an account by De Clerck, which described a walk southward from the “native town”, past Fort Oranje. He noted that the land immediately west of the fort excepting at its southernmost extent was used as a military training ground, so no houses existed there.

With the assistance of two local residents in 2019, a door-to-door survey of Santiong households was conducted to investigate the presence of old deep wells. This proved to be the most significant breakthrough in the research, leading to the identification of the exact location of Wallace’s house. Completed in January 2020, the survey uncovered a deep well at the corner of Jalan Merdeka and Jalan Pipit, looking down to Fort Oranje, and matching all the clues provided by Wallace. This discovery was formally recognized by Ternate City on the 2^nd of September 2019, and has since been endorsed by successive mayors. There are hopes that funding will be secured to purchase the site, where a replica of Wallace’s house can be built to serve as a museum and research centre.

The site in February 2020 after it had been cleared and boarded; Photo Krithika Varagur 2021