The Discovery of the Site of the Legendary House of Alfred Russel Wallace in Ternate

Alfred Russel Wallace's house in Ternate has become legendary as the site where he penned his Ternate Essay outlining his theory of evolution by natural selection and from where he posted it to Charles Darwin in March 1858. Wallace's house is considered to be the most important science history site in Indonesia. Wallace provides clues to the location of his house in The Malaya Archipelago. Earlier searches concluded that the site was at the Santiong house because it had an old, deep well. These findings would have been convincing had there not been any more old, deep wells in the district. This study hypothesized that other old, deep wells might exist within the district. A census was undertaken to identify all such wells - seven were located. One, newly identified, well, at the Oranje site, matched Wallace's clues most convincingly. The evidence strongly suggests that Wallace lived at the Oranje site—not at the Santiong house site.