The man who went by four names: NHB pieces together clues to unveil historic boundary marker

via Straits Times, 23 February 2022: Mystery of an early-20th century boundary marker found in Singapore last year solved.

It was a veritable cat’s cradle, comprising a man who went by four names, a membership register containing 250 people and a land deed from the 1910s.

At its heart: A mysterious rock found completely buried in Dover Forest, discovered by chance by the National Heritage Board (NHB) crew in October last year.

On Wednesday (Feb 23), NHB unveiled the historic 26kg granite boundary marker, measuring 82cm by 17cm by 14cm.

Though it was well known that such markers were used in colonial times to delineate territory, it took two months for researchers to establish its origins.

Consulting English and Chinese sources, they traced it back to Teochew businessman and community leader Sim Liang Whang, an early 20th-century Singapore-branch treasurer of the Chinese revolutionary society Tongmenghui, founded in 1905 to replace the Qing monarchy with a Chinese republican government.

Source: The man who went by four names: NHB pieces together clues to unveil historic boundary marker | The Straits Times