Captain Yap's tomb on Residency Hill
When did Yap Ah Shak pass away?
Despite his prominent status as the Captain China of Kuala Lumpur, the exact date on which Yap Ah Shak 葉石 was pronounced dead is not something we can locate definitively in the English literature.
The Straits Times (3 August 1889, p. 2) tells us that:
. . . in our late communication from Selangor reference has been made to the death of the Capitan China, Yeap Ah Shah, whose body now lies in state, according to the Chinese custom, in his Kuala Lumpur residence. This ceremony continues until the eighth month1 in the Chinese calendar, when the last funeral obsequies will be completed . . .
Yap Ah Shak was last mentioned in a road widening project together with Yap Kwan Seng 葉觀盛 in a document dated 5 June 1889. Thus, it is reasonable for us to posit the following calendrical bracket:
This bracket can be further tightened if we take the petition by Yap Hon Chin 葉韓進 (dated 23 July 1899) into the equation, for it is unlikely for the son of Yap Ah Loy 葉德來 to file a petition for the seat of captaincy before death the holder. Thus we can use this clue to optimize the upper bound and a better range estimate would be: 終(Yap) \(\in\) (5 June 1889, 23 July 1889).
- The last day of the seventh month in lunisolar calendar of the Year of Jichou was 25 August 1889.
- The problem can be resolved very easily when Chinese records are consulted. Captain Yap's death was explicitly given as 5 July 1889.
| # | Date | Event |
|---|---|---|
| -301 | 9 September 1888 | J. P. Rodger was appointed as the Resident of Pahang. |
| -95 | 31 March 1889 | Last day of J. P. Rodger as the Resident of Selangor. |
| -94 | 1 April 1889 | Rodger left Kuala Lumpur for Singapore. |
| -79 | 16 April 1889 | Rodger left Singapore for Pahang, to assume the role of the Resident of Pahang. |
| -62 | 3 May 1889 | W. E. Maxwell left Penang for Singapore. He was to travel to Japan for holiday before he assume his new role as the Resident of Selangor. |
| -29 | 5 June 1889 | Yap Ah Shak and Yap Kwan Seng were cited together in the Pudu/Petaling Road road-widening project. |
| 1 | 5 July 1889 | Captain Yap died |
| 2 | 6 July 1889 | |
| 3 | 7 July 1889 | |
| 4 | 8 July 1889 | |
| 5 | 9 July 1889 | |
| 6 | 10 July 1889 | |
| 7 | 11 July 1889 | |
| 8 | 12 July 1889 | |
| 9 | 13 July 1889 | |
| 10 | 14 July 1889 | |
| 11 | 15 July 1889 | |
| 12 | 16 July 1889 | |
| 13 | 17 July 1889 | |
| 14 | 18 July 1889 | |
| 15 | 19 July 1889 | |
| 16 | 20 July 1889 | |
| 17 | 21 July 1889 | |
| 18 | 22 July 1889 | |
| 19 | 23 July 1889 | Petition filed by Yap Hon Chin |
| 20 | 24 July 1889 | |
| 21 | 25 July 1889 | |
| 22 | 26 July 1889 | |
| 23 | 27 July 1889 | |
| 24 | 28 July 1889 | |
| 25 | 29 July 1889 | |
| 26 | 30 July 1889 | |
| 27 | 31 July 1889 | |
| 28 | 1 August 1889 | |
| 29 | 2 August 1889 | |
| 30 | 3 August 1889 | Captain Yap's death was reported in the Straits Times, p. 2. |
| 31 | 4 August 1889 | |
| 32 | 5 August 1889 | |
| 33 | 6 August 1889 | |
| 34 | 7 August 1889 | Maxwell left Singapore for Kuala Lumpur. |
| 35 | 8 August 1889 | Maxwell arrived at Residency Hill at 3:15 p.m. If the civil works for Yap's burial chamber were underway when Maxwell first reached Residency Hill, it is unlikely he would have missed the construction activity when he was on his way to his new home in Kuala Lumpur. |
| 36 | 9 August 1889 | |
| 37 | 10 August 1889 | |
| 38 | 11 August 1889 | |
| 39 | 12 August 1889 | |
| 40 | 13 August 1889 | |
| 41 | 14 August 1889 | |
| 42 | 15 August 1889 | |
| 43 | 16 August 1889 | |
| 44 | 17 August 1889 | |
| 45 | 18 August 1889 | |
| 46 | 19 August 1889 | |
| 47 | 20 August 1889 | |
| 48 | 21 August 1889 | |
| 49 | 22 August 1889 | |
| 50 | 23 August 1889 | |
| 51 | 24 August 1889 | |
| 52 | 25 August 1889 | Captain Yap's coffin was placed in inside an underground stone burial chamber on a hilly region between present-day Jalan San Peng and Jalan Loke Yew. In 1914, his wife was buried next to him. |
| . . . | . . . | . . . |
| 26,755 | 5 October 1962 | Exhumation Day 1/2. |
| 26,756 | 6 October 1962 | Exhumation Day 2/2: Yap and Wáng 王氏 are to be relocated to a new address: Kwong Fook Cemetery in Sungai Besi 廣福義山. |
Where was Yap Ah Shak buried?
We know Yap Ah Shak acquired a piece of one-acre land on the old Residency Hill (present-day Memorial Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra) in April 1883, during the reign of J. P. Rodger. This piece of land, we suppose, was originally planned as his final resting place, because he exhumed his parent's remains from Làshí village (Guǎngdōng 廣東省 ・ Zǐjīn 紫金縣 ・ Huángtáng 黃塘鎮 ・ Làshí 臘石村), shipped them to Kuala Lumpur, and reburied them on the hill.
When Captain Yap's memorial service was finalized on 25 August 1889, his coffin was supposed to be sent to the old Residency Hill to unite with his parents. Yap Ah Shak's final wish did not materialize according to his plan because of a change in the British administration, causing his coffin to be housed in the underground stone chamber in Pudu.
On 12 November 1889, Vong Chee Siew 王聚秀 and Seow Chong 萧昌 coauthored a letter (1957/0017586W) on behalf of their brother/father-in-law Yap Ah Shak. They were writing to a newly minted Resident named William E. Maxwell (b. 5 August 1846, d. 10 December 1897), who left Singapore on 7 August 1889 in the Horsburgh for We know Maxwell hit Kuala Lumpur on 15:15 (Thursday 8 August 1899), having left Bukit Kuda at 14:40.
The burial of Yap Ah Shak likely occured on 25 August 1889, which was Maxwell's Day 18 in Kuala Lumpur. It is reasonable to assume that Maxwell must have attended one of the mourning sessions in Yap Ah Shak's house.
Maxwell's predecessor, J. P. Rodger, left Kuala Lumpur in April 1889, for he landed Singapore on 2 April 1889.Kuala Lumpur.
We beg most respectfully to lay the following before you kind consideration. In 1883 the late acting Resident J. P. Rodger gave the late Yap Ah Shak permission to occupy one acre of ground on the Hill on the Gombak side of the river for the purpose of erecting a tomb on part of the said ground. In April 1883, an agreement for one acre was granted to the late Yap Ah Shak to occupy the said ground. The late Captain tried had parents bones brought from China and buried in the tomb referred to. We therefore now beg that the Government would not allow the said tomb to be destroyed.
Four days later on 16 November 1889, they were given the following reply:
In reply to their letter of the 12 instant, towkays Seow Chong and Vong Che Siew are informed that the tomb therein referred to shall not be injured at present and that if the masonry portions can be removed. The Resident will have no desire to disturb the bones buried there, but that he dislike the appearance of a tomb on the side of the hill immediately below the Residency and should like to see the brickwork removed or corrected of.
We suppose that Maxwell and all the subsequent British administrators honored their promise of not disturbing Yap Ah Shak's parent's underground remains, provided the aboveground stone structures are demolished.
Fast forward 73 years from 1889: The bones of Yap Ah Shak and his wife (they were the only occupants on the Jalan San Peng/Jalan Loke Yew hill site) were dug out in 1962 and reburied in another location in Kuala Lumpur.
| Name of Selangor Resident | Burial |
|---|---|
| John P. Rodger (59.60) b. 12 February 1851, d. 19 September 1910 | Kensal Green Cemetery, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Greater London. |
| Maxwell E. Maxwell (51.35) b. 5 August 1846, d. 10 December 1897 | Died on his voyage home. His body was lowered to the North Atlantic Ocean. |
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