Kiong Kong Tuan

Mr. Kiong Kong Tuan came from Penang, where he had carried on business as a merchant and established himself in Singapore. He married a daughter of the well-known Choa Chong Long, by whom he had an only son, Kiong Seok Wee, and several daughters, one of whom became the wife of Wee Bin of the steamship firm of "Wee Bin & Co." Mr. Kong Tuan also figured as the Spirit Farmer for some years. He had a spirit factory at Pearl's Hill, and the site is still known among the Chinese as Chiu-long-san (the spirit factory hill). He was named, by Stamford Raffles as the first Kapitan China of Singapore. He held the opium farms for a long time during the 1830s. He died at the age of 64 years on 16th January 1854. Mr. Kong Tuan was the grantee of that large tract of land comprising twenty acres which has now become a thickly populated Straits Chinese residential quarter with Chin Swee Road as the main artery and Cornwall Street and Seok Wee Road as side streets.One Hundred Years' History of the Chinese in Singapore by Ong Siang Song, 1923; p. xv, 25, 26] [Singapore: Wealth, Power and the Culture of Control By Carl A. Trocki Published by Routledge, 2006 ISBN 0415263859, 9780415263856; pp. 17, 87, 190, 205]

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