by Gretcham Lim ($57.77)
It was the agricultural entrepreneurs who tamed the jungle. Nutmeg, in particular, was the rage, although gambier and pepper were popular as well. The first Europeans to open nutmeg plantations were: Dr Thomas Oxley, who purchased a whopping 70 hectares (173 acres) of uncleared jungle from the East India Company, and formed the Killiney Estates; William Cuppage, an officer in the postal service who occupied Emerald Hill, and; Charles Carnie, a businessman who built the first house in Cairnhill in 1840. By the time the nutmeg trees succumbed to blight in the 1860s, the estates stretched from Pasir Panjang to Adam Road, through Tanglin, Claymore and Bukit Timah Road.