On Wednesday, April 1, 1829, the 387-ton American sailing ship Sachem, with Captain Abel Coffin in command, left Bangkok, moved slowly down the river, entered the Gulf of Siam, and started on its voyage halfway around the world to Boston.
In all, the trip would take 138 days—more than four and a half months.
The Sachem was a vessel equal to the voyage. It had been built nineteen years earlier by Thatcher Magoun, who had had his own shipyard in Medford, Massachusetts, from the time he was twenty-seven and who had the reputation of producing some of the most durable and best-equipped ships in America. The Sachem, 109 feet long, almost 29 feet wide, with two decks and three masts, was no exception. Its previous owners had sent it to Russia before it was taken over by John Bryant, a Bostonian, and William Sturgis, the tough, austere-living son of a Cape Cod ship-master and a shipmaster himself (he had once fought off sixteen pirate junks in Macao Road outside Hong Kong). Bryant and Sturgis had purchased the Sachem for their merchant fleet, and had several times sent it around Cape Horn to California to deal in the hides trade. Recently, the owners had taken on Abel Coffin as the ship's master and sent him to the East Indies. Now Coffin was bringing the Sachem home.
No ship's log exists detailing the Sachem's difficult and tedious journey from Bangkok to Boston. But based on a number of ports where Captain Coffin laid over for provisioning or trade and the letters he sent from those ports to his family in East Boston (the letters went on swifter ships having fewer stopovers), on knowledge of Coffin's earlier trips to the East Indies and Southeast Asia, and on the general trade routes used by Yankee vessels in those years, a fair guess may be made at the route that the Sachem followed.
It seems likely that the voyage took the ship from Siam to Singapore, then south to Batavia, then north to Anjier, then on a southwesterly course across the Indian Ocean to the island of Mauritius. From there, on to Table Bay or Capetown, South Africa; then along the African coast to the island of St. Helena, well out in the Atlantic Ocean; onward to thirty-four-square-mile, volcanic Ascension Island; and across the Atlantic to Boston, after a stopover in the Bermudas.
Likely the Sachem dropped anchor the first time off Singapore, because Robert Hunter had business interests in that port, then continued down to Batavia with a stop in Java, since Coffin would have found it advantageous to acquire a cargo of exotic East Indian goods to sell at a profit in Boston.
After that, Coffin would not have tarried, but would have tried to escape the wet season—the summer monsoon which, toward the end of April, blew southwest across the Indian Ocean to India. Following a brief stop at the island of Mauritius, the Sachem would have sailed to Capetown to take on provisions—fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, plus a supply of water. Next, the Sachem no doubt swung out 1,200 miles west into the South Atlantic toward the island of St. Helena, already renowned as the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's six-year exile and the site of his death eight years before Coffin's arrival. Coffin would have stopped here to purchase meat, vegetables, sweet potatoes.
News of the strangest cargo Captain Coffin had ever carried reached the outside world as the result of a letter Coffin wrote to his wife and children while on board the "Ship Sachem at Sea." This he no doubt dispatched from St. Helena. In it Captain Coffin told his wife: "Susan I have two Chinese Boys 17 years old grown together they enjoy extraordinary health I hope these will prove profitable as a curiosity."
In the same letter Captain Coffin touched on a business aspect of his "curiosity": "Mr. Hunter is passenger with me & is an excellent companion he owns half the Chinese Boys."
Robert Hunter did not complete the trip to Boston. At some point, probably in the Bermudas, he left the Sachem to board another ship heading for England.
While Captain Coffin mentioned the twins—and invoked the Lord to protect his children—in his correspondence, he made no references to the voyage itself. However, many similar voyages by similar ships in that period have been recorded, and the sights the twins saw must have been the same.
The twins must have had their first exposure to Western ways in Capetown. To Bruno Tavernier, a sea historian, ". . . the old Dutch town, where water ran in the streets, seemed a paradise of coolness after so many days of heat and danger." And in its markets, he had found "all the fruits of Europe and the tropics, as well as an excellent local wine."
Soon, there would have been another surprise for the twins. As Tavernier reported it: "One morning, a silhouette appeared on the horizon—Ascension Island. A boat full of soldiers came out. . . . They deposited on board several enormous turtles, which served to make excellent soup, and took a few casks of spirits in exchange."
In the Atlantic, the twins may have experienced at least one storm. But mostly the water was calm, and Chang and Eng, who adjusted readily to life at sea, were fired with the natural exuberance of seventeen-year-olds and the promise of a new life. They roamed freely, exploring the decks of the Sachem as energetically as any normal teen-agers. They were fascinated by everything they saw on the ship, and quickly made friends with the crew. In fact, the Yankee sailors adopted the twins and did everything possible to amuse and entertain them.
As the voyage progressed, the twins fell in love with the Sachem. According to a pamphlet, The Siamese Twin Brothers, published in 1830: "When on board the ship, they would often observe that they hoped at some future time to command a vessel of their own, and when any necessary orders were given, would frequently repeat them over in the order, and in the tone of voice in which they had heard them delivered."
According to this same pamphlet: "It is remarkable that, during [their] months on shipboard, on their voyage to America ... they never for a moment experienced sea sickness, on the contrary, when others who had often been at sea, were obliged to remain below in their cabins, these boys were constantly upon deck, from morning till night, and would frequently go aloft for their own amusement, even in rough weather, without experiencing the least inconvenience."
The twins were ill only twice during the entire trip. On one occasion, they ate too much rich food (they were not yet accustomed to Western diet) and got stomachaches, but they had recovered by the next day. Another time, one twin had a toothache for three days. This annoyed the other, who complained that "he had not slept all night so much as that," marking off half of the nail of his forefinger. While the toothache lasted, they were both given a little brandy and water to help them sleep, and the difficulty soon passed.
Captain Coffin was interested in learning how closely their systems were related because of the joining ligament, so he tried a simple experiment. Sneaking into their bedroom at night, he would touch one twin, and every time he did this, both awakened simultaneously.
Once, Captain Coffin let a sailor tie a rope around the twins' connecting band and then give the rope a sharp tug. Neither twin reported feeling any discomfort, let alone pain.
Throughout the voyage, whenever he was free, Captain Coffin kept the twins under observation. He was the first to note, as he would later tell the press, that although they were twins and joined together, they were different personalities. Chang was mentally quicker, brighter, but more often irritable. Eng was reposeful, quieter, and more retiring, but had wider intellectual interests.
For most of their 138-day voyage, the boys were lively and even-tempered. From the crew members, they began to take lessons in English. By the time the voyage was over, they were able to understand the language fairly well and to carry on simple conversations in broken English, as well as to do a limited amount of reading. They also learned to play checkers with the crew, and became so proficient at it that they were soon able to beat the men who had taught them. In a short time, they were challenging anyone who was willing to oppose them, each in turn playing an entire game. When they matched themselves against each other, which they did infrequently, one would correct the other if he made a bad move.
The synchronicity of their physical movements amazed everyone on board. If Chang on impulse turned or walked to the left, Eng also went left. It was not as if Eng was pulled along, but as if his mind had anticipated Chang's motion. They instinctively moved together in the same direction, and were never seen walking out of step.
One shipboard incident in particular displayed their remarkable coordination. They were cavorting on deck, running at full speed while being chased by a crew member, when suddenly they came to an open hatchway. Had they hesitated for an instant, had one plunged ahead and the other halted, they would have fallen into the hole and been killed—but instead, automatically and with perfect grace, they both took to the air, leaped over the open hatch in unison, and landed safely on the other side.
They were often seen climbing the ship's masts, ascending higher and higher in tandem, a dangerous and scary feat for one boy, let alone two who were bound together.
They agreed on almost everything—where to go, what to do, what to eat, when to sleep—although they did not speak to each other very often. The only serious argument they had while on the ship was when one wanted to take a cold bath, and the other demurred, saying that the night was too chilly. Their disagreement became so intense that Captain Coffin intervened, discussed it with them at length, and finally the proposed bath was abandoned. When one imagines a life in which no daily function, no matter how small, can be fulfilled unless it is agreed to by another human being, one can appreciate how extraordinary it was that the twins performed as well as they did and with so little overt conflict.
For the twins, one distressing incident did occur on the trip, about the time they neared Boston. They had brought along their crated python, not only as a pet but because they felt that the reptile might make an exotic exhibit in the West. The python had taken the sea voyage well. But two hundred miles outside Boston, apparently due to rough weather, the box that confined the reptile broke open and the python escaped. When a thorough search of the ship did not produce the python, it was assumed that it had slithered overboard and been drowned.
The crossing of the Atlantic Ocean was almost completed, the New World before them, yet the twins showed not a moment's apprehension. Far behind them were the bobbing houseboats of Meklong, the familiar temples of the Golden Supreme, the awesome world of King Rama III, as well as the warm safety of their mother and kin and friends. But their unique human condition had prepared them for anything drastically new or different.
Apparently once, if not many times, they reflected on the change that was confronting them, and years later they discussed it with their Boswell, Judge Graves, who put to paper some of their youthful feelings and emotions. They had left their homes, as Judge Graves would write,
. . . to go upon an untried venture among strange people, wearing strange faces and speaking a strange language. To them all was strange indeed. The staunch ship, powerfully framed yet so skillfully proportioned to cut swiftly through the water, yielding to the slightest touch of the helm or change of sail was so different from the unwieldy, gaudily painted Chinese junks which they had been accustomed to see, the stalwart sailors with ruddy cheeks and heavy beard so unlike the low swarthy beardless men that they had hitherto associated with all impressed them with new and peculiar emotions. They began to think that perhaps after all the people of their nation was not so vastly superior to all others as they imagined. They did not dispond however, and young as they were their varied experience in real life had taught them to adapt themselves to circumstances and to endeavor in some way or other to improve every opportunity.
On Sunday, August 16, 1829, the Sachem, with Chang and Eng at the rail, entered Boston harbor and docked among the square-riggers at the Long Wharf, opposite the India Wharf. Its cargo, according to an announcement in the Boston Daily Advertiser, contained "sugar, sapan wood, gamboge [a gum resin from trees that could be used medicinally as a cathartic or by painters as a yellow pigment], buffalo horns, leopard skins, and tin."
Shortly after the Sachem docked, Chang and Eng each set foot in Boston, still a year away from the tooth anniversary of its founding, and on the soil of the United States of America, still a young nation only fifty-three years in existence. The twins had arrived at an exciting time in the new nation's history. The Democratic party had been established the year before, the first Democratic candidate for President, Andrew Jackson, had been elected, and five months earlier he had been sworn in and had celebrated with the most unruly, raucous inauguration party the nation had yet known.
There were twelve million people in the United States, and most of them hungered for diversion. Many were attracted to a theater in New York's Bowery where an upside-down acrobat, Peters the Antipodean, walked on the ceiling, and lifted ten coach wheels and sixteen men from the stage below. Everyone, it seemed, was trying to see Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, an Austrian, with his panharmonicon (a one-man orchestra), his talking dolls, his robot chess player called the Turk (a machine that had defeated Napoleon in a match, and was not a machine at all but a chess expert hidden in a wooden chest).
America's twelve million could not know that the team that would become the most popular and best-known entertainment of the era had just descended a gangplank and entered Boston.
The following day there appeared in the Boston Patriot the first newspaper article ever to be printed in the United States about the new phenomenon from Siam. Coffin and Hunter could have little imagined at the time the countless columns of newsprint their discovery would spawn in the days and weeks and decades to come. Coffin had arranged for the reporter from the Patriot to have a brief glimpse of the twins on the Sachem the day of their arrival. The reporter wrote:
Lusus Naturae [sport of nature] — The Sachem, arrived at this port yesterday, has on board two Siamese youths, males, eighteen years of age, their bodies connected from their birth. They appear to be in good health, and apparently contented with their confined situation. We have seen and examined this strange freak of nature. It is one of the greatest living curiosities we ever saw. The two boys are about five feet in height, of well-proportioned frames, strong and active, good-natured, and of pleasant countenances, and withal intelligent and sensible—exhibiting the appearance of two well-made Siamese youths, with the exception that by a substance apparently bony or cartilaginous, about seven inches in circumference and four in length, proceeding from the umbilical region of each, they are firmly united together. They have a good appetite, appear lively, and run about the deck and cabin of the ship with the facility that any two healthy lads would do, with their arms over each other's shoulders, this being the position in which they move about. They will probably be exhibited to the public when proper arrangements have been made. They will be objects of great curiosity, particularly to the medical faculty. Their unnatural union is not more of a curiosity than the vigorous health they enjoy, and their apparent entire contentedness with their condition. One of the boys is named Chang, the other named Eng; together they are called Chang-Eng.
Before these "objects of great curiosity" could be shown "to the medical faculty" and before "proper arrangements" could be made to show them to a titillated public, Chang and Eng were given a chance to acclimatize themselves to their new surroundings and to have a brief look at their first American city. Their excursions about Boston were made in an enclosed horse-drawn carriage and were of short duration, since Coffin did not want the public to view for nothing what it would soon be asked to pay to see.
At a later date, they confided their earliest impression of Boston to Judge Graves, who noted:
"They were . . . muchly surprised to see such great houses built of so heavy and solid materials as brick and stone, and lighted through such spacious windows closed with glass, a substance unknown to them in their native country. Nor were they less astonished at the handsome carriages, fine horses and great omnibuses in which people traveled instead of in boats as they had been accustomed to do. They also admired the neatly draped ladies whose complexions were so fair, and wondered at the customs of the men who were actually walking around in public without their cues."
At the time that Chang and Eng arrived there, Boston was at once a stately and a rowdy city with a population of 6i,000, a growing number of these being Irish pauper immigrants, whom the native Yankee Puritans resented and often physically attacked. The city mayor elected in that year was the redoubtable Harrison Gray Otis, a former lawyer and U.S. Senator, with a grand house at 45 Beacon Street, overlooking the Boston Common. In his entry, at the foot of a staircase, Otis kept a ten-gallon bowl filled with punch as an oasis for parched visitors en route to his drawing room.
As Chang and Eng were driven over the cobblestone streets of the city, they were dazzled by the sights. There was the vast rolling pasture—a onetime parade ground, now a park known as the Boston Common—where a few cows still roamed and grazed. There was the magnificent three-story Faneuil Hall, given to the city by a French Huguenot merchant. Known as "the cradle of liberty," it was an assembly hall devoted to free speech where Daniel Webster often orated. There was the partially built Tremont Hotel, which in two months would open its 170 bedrooms and eight toilets (the first ever known in America in a public building) to become America's largest hotel. Charles Dickens would stay here on his first visit to the United States. There was the Old North Church (Second Unitarian Church), in Hanover Street, where Ralph Waldo Emerson held the pulpit. There was the Old Drury Theatre, where a few years earlier the great English actor Edmund Kean had offended a portion of the audience and had been bombarded from the stage under a shower of vege-tables and stones. There was Massachusetts General Hospital, a granite edifice whose star surgeon was Dr. John Collins Warren, who was lobbying the state legislature to permit unclaimed bodies of paupers to be used for dissection. This act he believed would discourage body-snatching. There were newspaper print shops, and newspapers carrying front-page advertisements for wines, flour, rum, sugar, molasses, tobacco, wool, cotton, leather, tin-ware, whale oil, Calcutta silks. There were the public coaches, leaving on the hour from Washington Street and fanning out across the other Eastern states with their passengers. There were taverns and inns—at least a half dozen well-known ones—alive with gaiety, especially at night when the twins made their way past the dim oil lamps to their hostelry.
It was bewildering, it was exciting, and it was very far from Meklong.
In less than a week Chang and Eng ceased visiting the sights of Boston and prepared to become a local sight themselves. The first to view them were two eminent physicians. One was Dr. Joseph Skey, a graduate of Edinburgh University and Deputy Inspector General of Hospitals for the British Army. In 1823, Dr. Skey had been serving with the British forces in Barbados, British West Indies, where he devoted much of his spare time to geology. When he had a leave, he liked to spend it in Boston, which he found more convenient than returning to London, and presumably just as pleasant.
Dr. Skey, apparently on leave in Boston, learned of the arrival of Chang and Eng. Fascinated, he applied to Captain Coffin for permission to conduct a few simple experiments on the twins, to learn something about their physiology and motor responses. What he did was repeat the experiment that Coffin had performed on shipboard, that of waking one boy and observing what effect this had on the other. Dr. Skey undertook this test several times. Entering the twins' room at midnight, three nights in a row, Dr. Skey touched one twin and discovered he had roused them both. Sitting up sleepily, they wanted to know why they had been disturbed.
After these precursory experiments, Chang and Eng received their first real medical examination. This was at the skilled hands of Dr. John Collins Warren, professor of anatomy and surgery at Harvard Medical School, the man that the twins had heard about when they saw Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Warren was to be remembered for his removal of a neck tumor in 1846, since it was the first time a reputable doctor had used ether on a patient during surgery. This was a major breakthrough for anesthesia at a time when the word "surgery" was synonymous with both agonizing pain and possible death from septicemia.
Dr. Warren's appearance must certainly have been as striking as his reputation, for he was described as "tall, and painfully thin," with "bright piercing eyes under shaggy brows." He no doubt fascinated Chang and Eng as much as they fascinated him.
Dr. Warren found them cheerful and intelligent, and characterized them as "readily acknowledging any civility." He observed that their pulses, heartbeats, and respiration were exactly alike, and that they shared the same "habits and tastes." In his paper, "An Account of the Siamese Twin Brothers, United Together from Their Birth," he wrote:
My attention was called to the Siamese boys by a highly respectable gentleman [William Sturgis, one of the owners of the Sachem], who wished me to examine them, in order to ascertain if there was any thing indecorous or fallacious in their appearance. On examination, I found that the medium of their connexion was more complicated than I had expected, and that they exhibited other phenomena worthy to justify a statement of their condition. . . .
The substance by which they are connected is a mass two inches long at its upper edge, and about five at the lower. Its breadth from above downwards may be four inches; and its thickness in a horizontal direction two inches. Of course, it is not a rounded cord, but thicker in the perpendicular, than in the horizontal direction. At its lower edge is perceived a single umbilicus, through which passed a single umbilical cord, to nourish both children in the fetal state. Placing my hand on this substance, which I will denominate the cord, I was surprised to find it extremely hard...
When I first visited the boys,. I expected to see them pull on this cord in different directions, as their attention was attracted by different objects. I soon perceived that this did not happen. The slightest impulse of one to move in any direction is immediately followed by the other, so that they would appear to be influenced by the same wish. This harmony in their movements is not the result of a volition excited at the same moment; it is a habit, formed by necessity.
Dr. Warren noted that they never consulted each other on their movements, in fact rarely spoke to each other, but preferred to chat with their Siamese companion Teiu. Continuing his report, Dr. Warren stated:
Those who have resided with them say, that the alvine and urinary evacuations take place at about the same intervals in both, though not at the same time.... The pulsations of the hearts of both coincide exactly, under ordinary circumstances. I counted seventy-three pulsations in a minute while they were sitting, counting first in one boy, then in the other.... One of them stooped suddenly to look at my watch, his pulse became much quicker than that of the other; but after he had returned to his former posture, in about a quarter of a minute his pulse was precisely like that of the other boy. This happened repeatedly.
As for the ligament connecting them, Dr. Warren reported that it was not especially sensitive to touch. He concluded that the band was made up mostly of cartilage, with an insignificant number of connecting vessels, lymphatics, and small nerves. However, he stated that there was possibly a continuous peritoneal cavity within the ligament, which might make surgical separation dangerous. More important, he felt that the twins were not psychologically prepared for such an operation, and that until they were, any attempt to separate them would be improper. Only, he said, if one were to die before the other should they be cut apart immediately.
This first opinion concerning their separation, from the lips of an eminent surgeon, apparently did not depress the twins. At eighteen, accustomed to their condition, enjoying constant attention, embarked upon a new and exciting life, they probably never thought of being cut apart.
Of the uniqueness of their personalities, Dr. Warren made the first recorded observation, saying: "The perceptions of the one are more acute than those of the other; and there is a corresponding coincidence in moral qualities. He who appears most intelligent is somewhat irritable in temper, while the disposition of the other is extremely mild." The "irritable" one, of course, was Chang, and in later years he would more and more frequently be thus contrasted with his mild-mannered brother.
Toward the end of his paper, Dr. Warren reflected once more on their individuality:
Among the curious questions which have arisen in regard to these individuals, one has been made as to the moral identity of the two persons. There is no reason to doubt that the intellects of the two are as perfectly distinct as those of any two individuals who might be accidentally confined together. Whether similarity of education or identity of position, as to external objects, have inspired them with any extraordinary sameness of mental action, I am unable to say; any farther, at least, than that they seem to agree in their habits and tastes.
There was a final remark made by Dr. Warren—a prediction, really—that would be remembered by followers of the twins, for it would prove to be so very wrong: "Their health is at present good, but it is probable that the change of their simple habits of living for the luxuries they now obtain, together with the confinement their situation necessarily involves, will bring their lives to a close within a few years."
As news of the twins' arrival in Boston spread throughout the city, there were many who suspected them of being fakes—twins perhaps, but not really joined as one. The general mood changed and interest quickened, however, when Captain Coffin saw to it that Dr. Warren's observations appeared in the press. Before and after the physician's diagnosis was publicized, a constant flow of newspaper stories helped kindle public interest.
It was about this time that Captain Coffin found someone who might assist him in the promotion and management of the twins, as well as handle them while he was out of the country. The person Coffin retained was an energetic, amusing young man named James Webster Hale, a native of Boston. Hale was twenty-eight, ten years older than the twins, married and a father. Although his only known profession was that of notary, he was now ready to work for Coffin and Hunter. Assigned the job of looking after the welfare of the twins—he was their first business agent—Hale became absorbed by Chang and Eng. He was to write the first biographical pamphlet about them, one that would be sold at the exhibits he arranged, and he maintained contact with the twins as long as they lived.
The second week in Boston, Hale and Coffin rented a tent large enough to hold several thousand people and, to fill it, they launched a huge publicity campaign featuring a blizzard of provocative posters. Unfortunately, they left the wording on the first posters up to the printer, a man of insensitivity who initially billed the twins as THE MONSTER. Appalled, the twins' sponsors quickly changed the billing to read THE SIAMESE DOUBLE BOYS.
Lured by the publicity, crowds poured into the tent. Spectators paid a fifty-cent entrance fee. The profits were satisfying, and Captain Coffin was delighted that his exhibit was turning out to be an even better investment than anything he had imagined in Siam.
The exhibit proved equally satisfying to the public. However, some spectators were confused or bewildered by the spectacle. One old gentleman who came to see Chang and Eng inquired as to their age. When he was told that they were eighteen years old, he innocently asked whether they were both eighteen. Another spectator, overhearing him, replied that one twin was two years older than his brother, and the questioner went away quite content with his answer.
This sort of absurdity followed the twins for the rest of their lives, and taking an attitude of amusement, they developed a number of witty replies to such inane inquiries. People who came to view them found them unfailingly charming and gracious, with impeccable manners.
For their last appearance in Boston, Chang and Eng were moved from their tent to an exhibition room in the Exchange Coffee House. Advertisements were placed, reminding the public that the twins would soon be leaving town. The Boston Daily Courier announced on September 1:
GREAT NATURAL CURIOSITY
Last week of the Exhibition of the
SIAMESE DOUBLE BOYS
At the suggestion of many of the first families in the city, the forenoons of Thursday, Friday and Saturday next, will be devoted exclusively to the reception of Ladies, from 9 to they will be exhibited until then, and on the afternoons of those days as heretofore, and on Saturday noon next will positively leave the city.
On the twins' last day in Boston, the Daily Courier printed a long piece about them:
All the town goes to see the Siamese twins, and people are set wondering, as well they may be, at this fantastical trick which dame Nature has taken it into her head to play for the special purpose of confounding the wits of us poor mortals. That these two pretty lads should be condemned all their lifetime to be as it were an eternal sticking plaster to one another, and live in a manner alone in the community without the benefits of individuality or the prerogatives of single gentlemen, is a circumstance odd enough to set us pondering. But passing over matters of this sort which might afford topics for edifying and fruitful speculation, the most curious view of the subject is that in which it offers itself to the learned masters of metaphysics and theology, not to mention divers other scientific departments. It is not difficult to perceive that simple as these young fellows are, they cannot fail to suggest some knotty questions …
The article then explored the "knotty questions" posed by the joined brothers. First, "profound theologians" were asked what were the religious implications if one twin remained a disciple "of the great Buddha" and the other twin "should be converted to Christianity"? Would both souls be saved since one twin was a Christian, or were both lost to Christ since one twin was a "heathen"? Next, "learned men of the law" were asked a three-part question: "Would ye indict two men as an individual? Dare ye send Chang and his brother to jail when only Chang shall happen to break the peace? Or, if Chang and Eng should fall out together, tell us we beseech ye, could Chang have his action for being assaulted by his other half, that is by himself?" Finally, "acute metaphysicians" were asked, "Can ye tell us in this case how the witchcraft of logic can turn darkness into light? how Chang and Eng can settle between themselves the great question in philosophy of what's what and who's who?"
As the twins' Boston stay neared its end, James Hale had been busy booking them in three other Eastern cities. With their profitable three weeks in Boston behind them, the twins packed their belongings, climbed into an enclosed horse-drawn carriage, and headed for the port of Providence, Rhode Island.
It was during their successful week's stay in Providence that Chang and Eng began to develop an act, probably for their own amusement as well as for the benefit of their audiences. In Boston, they had merely presented themselves and their exposed binding ligament, and had answered any questions put to them. In Providence, with a polished act, they became as much an entertainment as a curiosity. The high point of their performance consisted of a series of quick somersaults performed in perfect coordination, followed by a few back flips. Then, if the audience was a good one, the twins would invite volunteers to challenge them in a game of checkers. Upon occasion, they would lift and carry the heaviest member of the audience around the room. Once, they carried a man who weighed 280 pounds up and down a long hall, much to the delight of the applauding spectators.
The twins were able to act in unison because they were almost the same height. Eng was 5 feet 31/2 inches tall, while Chang was an inch shorter. Chang eventually wore shoes with lifts to make up for the slight difference, so that Eng would not be pulling any extra weight.
By the time Chang and Eng left Providence on the ship Chancellor Livingston, bound for the climactic stop of their first American tour, New York City, their reputation had begun to grow. Hale, as their advance man, had preceded them to New York, where he briefed newspaper editors on their anticipated arrival. He also papered the big city with posters and handbills bearing a likeness of the twins. When Chang and Eng arrived in New York on September 18, 1829, the inhabitants of America's leading metropolis were expecting them and clamoring for a view of this Asian oddity.
Although New York was a city of horse carriages and pedestrians—the first horse-drawn streetcars were still a few years away—and although its substantial brownstone and granite buildings had not yet been supplanted by towering structures, the metropolis was nevertheless overwhelming to any newcomer—a bustling, active community.
Neither Boston nor Providence had prepared Chang and Eng for the grandeur and excitement of New York. They toured Broadway, gawking at the Franklin House hotel and the two-story depot for the stage line to Albany. On Broadway, too, they saw Bogert's popular bakery and Putnam's bookshop. They inspected the Cortlandt Street Ferry House, stared at the squat two-story marble city hall crowned by a cupola, enjoyed the buildings of the shipping companies and marine insurance underwriters filling the Hanover Square business center.
Most of all, the twins appreciated the diversions of the city, from the Park Theater on Chatham Street, where John Howard Payne's song "Home, Sweet Home" had been introduced six years earlier to an audience seated in boxes and on board benches, to Windust's richly decorated tavern that was the gathering place for celebrities before the advent of Delmonico's.
Three years before the arrival of the twins, the aristocratic diarist Philip Hone had been elected mayor of New York, and in his journal he recorded the diversions of his beloved city. In the months and weeks before the appearance of Chang and Eng, Hone set down some of his typical activities in his diary: He went to the shipyard to watch the launching of the packet Erie; he attended the arrival of the first steam locomotive seen in the city, one built by the well-known George Stephenson; he received the son of Marshal Ney, who brought a letter of introduction from Lafayette; he celebrated in the rain the fifty-third Fourth of July and noted that it was "ushered in by the usual accompaniment of pistols, firecrackers, and fireballs, and in despite of the Temperance Society, the Park is surrounded with booths, where everything drinkable is to be had but water." Philip Hone would not record seeing Chang and Eng on their visit this time, but he would do so later.
While public masked balls were declared an outrage and outlawed, people of the city still found their pleasure in theaters, restaurants, taverns, coffee houses. But even more was wanted. New Yorkers craved and demanded a greater variety of entertainment. When Modeste Malhoit, the 619-pound Canadian giant, was unveiled, the crowds congregated in droves. This demand for the bizarre, the innovative, the unusual, was insatiable. All social classes were one in their desire for new entertainment—for the poorer citizens, a mere fifty cents opened the door to an escape from poverty, monotony, the autumn's chill, and for the middle and wealthier classes, a paltry entry fee provided a fresh sensation. New York was ready for the United Brothers from Siam.
Large advertisements, beginning in the New York Evening Post, heralded the advent of Chang and Eng: "WONDERFUL NATURAL CURIOSITY—The SIAMESE TWIN BROTHERS will be exhibited at the Grand Saloon, Masonic Hall, every day (Sunday excepted) from 9 till 2 in the morning, and from 6 to 9 in the evening."
Newspapers were generous in giving space to the twins. On September 21, the Evening Post reported:
"The Siamese boys. — These united twin children are now exhibited in this city, at the Masonic Hall, Broadway. They present a spectacle of great interest, alloyed, however, by those feelings of commiseration which human deformity must ever occasion. They seem not only contented with their condition of forced compan-ionship, but, so far as we may judge from the display of their fraternal feelings during the short time that we were present with them, quite as happy as children of their age usually are. . . . From the opinion we have heard expressed we see no reason to doubt that the Siamese children might be disjoined; and if they can without suffering permanent injury, humanity requires that it should be done."
The following day, September 22, the New York Courier and Enquirer carried an open letter written by Dr. Felix Pasclair, "Special correspondent of the medical society of Paris" in New York, to "Monsieur Newquart, D.M.P., ex-President and Secre-tary General of the Medical Society of Paris; Dept. of the Sane [Seine], etc.," containing a lengthy account of Chang and Eng. The letter read in part:
One hundred and twenty-eight years have elapsed since the occurrence of the formation of a double human being; as re-corded by the celebrated Buffon. It was that of the girl Judith and Helene, born in Hungary, united back to back with an only alvine organ. They lived 21 years; the first died from a severe attack of fever, and the other immediately followed her showing no specific symptom of disease!
The rarity of preceding similar cases in Europe or elsewhere, has induced me to communicate the recent occurrence of two male children now offered to our observation in the city of New York who are firmly joined at the epigastric region. They are from the kingdom of Siam...
Among the subjects of natural curiosity which are derived from the animated creation ... none could excite more really painful feelings of pity than the contemplation of these ill-fated fellow creatures. We are however much relieved by hearing that they were not abandoned by their parents—that an American navigator had received them in trust from their mother, to be returned under contract with such a stipulated fund as to be sufficient for their maintenance and future comfort; also to have them as far as possible instructed in our language. They have in their company another countryman, a youth, the son of a rich merchant in Bangkock, placed by his father under the care of Capt. A. Coffin for the special purpose of receiving the best American education. The other Siamese, Master Tien [Teiu], is a remarkably handsome lad, has a much darker complexion, has no Chinese features about him, and already begins to speak English
This constant publicity had its effect. During their three-week stay in New York, the performances of Chang and Eng were almost always attended by overflow audiences.
After a week, Chang and Eng had begun to tire of hotel living and their lack of privacy. Until this time, they had permitted Hale and Coffin to arrange for their room and board. Now, suddenly, they wished to be independent and on their own, and they determined to find their own lodgings.
For an entire day, pushing past gaping fellow pedestrians, they wandered the streets of New York in search of accommodations. Together, in step, they traversed the spacious avenues shaded by weeping willows, moved through the winding, curving streets of the older sections of town. Everywhere they saw buildings in various stages of construction. There were constant fires in New York, and the beautiful wooden and brick buildings were always being replaced. They entered residential sections, where the handsome, multicolored houses ranged from one story to five—an incredible vision after the recent floating huts of Siam.
The search for living quarters was more difficult than they had anticipated. Not every landlady would accept such strange tenants. After a series of disappointments, they approached a large house on John Street, where the proprietress was pleasant and proved willing to rent to them. They were shown an attractive room on the first floor, and they were about to take it when they heard the shuffling sound of footsteps over their heads. At once, they became distraught. Puzzled, the landlady reassured them that the sound was merely another tenant walking on the second floor. But the twins remained upset. The ground floor no longer pleased them. They wanted something higher up, preferably at the top of the house.
Confused, the landlady explained that the only thing available upstairs was the attic. She was quite sure they would not want that, since it was dark and uncomfortable. Nevertheless, the twins requested to see the attic, and when they were led up to it, they instantly announced that they would take it. The landlady was thoroughly mystified, but she pressed them no further.
At the outset, Chang and Eng proved to be perfect tenants, quiet and retiring, and they voiced no complaints about their cramped attic quarters. But after a few weeks of trudging up and down three flights of stairs—which were not wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side—the twins approached their landlady with a request to move downstairs. Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, the landlady asked why they had chosen the attic in the first place. The twins finally explained the reason for their choice. In Siam, they said, it was believed that a severe misfortune would befall a person who allowed someone else to walk over his head. It meant bad luck for the twins if they had anyone situated above them. But the strenuous daily trip up and down three flights of stairs had done much to dissolve their superstitious fear. They were now ready to live with people over their heads—and from that day on, they did.
Meanwhile, their successful exhibits in New York continued. Although some spectators made unfeeling comments about their abnormality, the twins were rarely bothered. In fact, far from being self-conscious about their own physical condition, they were sympathetic and concerned for others whom they felt had greater problems.
In New York, when a man with one eye attended one of their performances, they insisted that he be refunded half his admission fee because he could see only half of what the rest of the audience saw. This perhaps was more an indication of their wry sense of humor than of their humanitarianism. But soon after, they observed a cripple in the audience, a man who had lost his hands and feet. They were immediately sympathetic. They gave him a present, saying that since they had four hands and he had none, it was their duty and their pleasure to assist him.
If the twins' physical appearance continued to be a source of fascination, their behavior also drew attention. Visitors who questioned them were constantly astonished at the harmony that existed between the two. They continued to walk, talk, dress, and eat as one, with flawless coordination. What one disliked eating, the other also rejected. When one felt tired, so did the other. Since they were not often observed speaking to each other, yet acted in accord, visitors believed that they were in telepathic communication. The twins admitted that they did not enjoy playing checkers against one another, explaining that it was no more fun than playing the right hand against the left.
In less than a week, the twins' presence in New York came to the attention of two prominent physicians—Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell, then vice-president of Rutgers Medical College, and his colleague Dr. William Anderson. A contemporary London pamphlet praised the pair highly, saying: "Dr. Anderson was the pupil of Sir Astley Cooper [of London, perhaps the most famous surgeon in England], and enjoys high reputation in America. Dr. Mitchell is also well known throughout the whole civilized world as a philosopher of the most profound research." Intrigued by what they heard of the twins, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Anderson volunteered to give them their third medical examination since reaching the United States.
The twins were agreeable, and the examination was undertaken. Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Anderson then compiled their observations in a medical paper written for members of their profession. They had some definite thoughts about the ligament that joined the twins:
"Into the canal of this almost cylindrical band, there is a protrusion of the viscus from the abdomen of its respective boy, upon every effort of coughing or other exercise; and these protrusions, from their particular hardness and size, more at some times than others, we might suppose to be made up of the abdominal viscera, as intestine, liver, stomach, or spleen, as each should happen in the various positions of their bodies, to be presented to the openings, since we believe that parts of every abdominal or pelvic viscus, excepting the kidneys, have been found from time to time to enter into the composition of hernial tumors."
In other words, if the connecting band were cut and the peritoneal membrane that lines the cavity of the human abdomen were ruptured, this would expose the intestines, liver, stomach, and spleen, thus subjecting these vital organs to possible infection.
Speaking directly to this point, the physicians gave their opinions on surgery: "A question has arisen, which has been discussed with some warmth, whether they could be separated with safety. We think they could not. . . . If such an operation could be practicable, for the liberation of these boys, then it might be deemed advisable, other permissions cooperating. . ."
In a personal letter to Captain Coffin, after minutely reporting on their examination of the binding ligament that held Chang and Eng together, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Anderson employed lay-man's language (as best they could) to recommend strongly that the twins be left united.
New York, Sept. 24
To CAPTAIN COFFIN
Dear Sir, — In accordance with your request, we have the plea-sure to communicate the observations made at our visit this day to the Siamese youths. . . .
There can be no doubt that if these boys were separated by the knife, and this band cut across at any part, a large opening would be made into the belly of each, that would expose them to enormous hernial protrusions and inflammations that would certainly prove fatal. We have understood the mother to have noted a very curious fact, worthy the mention of accoucheurs, that, when they were born, the head of one was covered or encased by the lower extremities of the other, and thus they made the easiest possible entrance into the world.
They are so satisfied with their condition, that nothing renders them so unhappy as the fear of a separation by any surgical operation: the very mention of it causes immediate weeping. Indeed, there is a good reason for this uneasiness; for, as stated above, according to our judgment, there would be the most extreme hazard in any such attempt, and even after cut asunder, they would experience much dimunition of enjoyment. But it has been urged by many that they ought to be disconnected. We think such an opinion is incorrect. It cannot, consistent with our principles and usages, be done without their consent. To this they are totally opposed; and as they are under the protection of a kind and benevolent gentleman, we know you will take good care of them, and, if they live, return them to their homes again. As they are so alert and vigorous, we really coincide that "in ten seconds they can lay a stout ordinary man on his back."
We are, dear Sir, your most obedient servants.
SAMUEL L. MITCHELL
WILLIAM ANDERSON
Captain Abel Coffin lost no time in instructing Hale to turn the letter from the two physicians over to the press, which published it widely in the New York area, and later throughout the United States and Great Britain.
Next, Coffin and Hale took their charges to Philadelphia for a week of performances. On October 9, the Aurora and Pennsylvania Gazette told its readers: "We had the pleasure, yesterday, of viewing the Siamese boys, and were much gratified to find that their intimate union is attended with but little bodily embarrassment, and does not in the least interfere with their happiness. . . . They are well worth the inspection of the curious."
The curious came in droves. According to one account, Chang and Eng's exhibition grossed $1,000 during their short appearance in Philadelphia.
Once again, Captain Coffin depended upon the medical profession to certify and help sell his product. In Philadelphia, he invited the city's leading doctors, many from Jefferson Medical College, to examine Chang and Eng. One of these, described by a newspaper as "a distinguished Surgeon of this city," wrote a two-column account of the twins which appeared in the October 24 edition of the Aurora and Pennsylvania Gazette. The surgeon, who signed himself E.B., began by crediting Captain Coffin for the twins' present state of good health:
When obtained by their present proprietor, they bore marks of habitual exposure and hardship, without an adequate supply of wholesome nutriment. . . . They were emaciated, and their health apparently so frail, as to render it a matter of serious question whether they would be capable of enduring the fatigues of such a voyage as was contemplated for them. Capt. C however found that a proper attention to their food, and a kind watchfulness over their wants, soon improved their health and vigour; and whilst on ship board, they entirely recovered .. .
The surgeon went on to describe the twins:
Their voices are disagreeable, coarse, and unmusical—apparently under the influence of their age of puberty. They are not observed to converse with each other often. By many this circumstance has been ascribed to an indifference to each other, supposed to arise from a feeling that they mutually interfered with each other's independence and comfort. This is not the case—it is simply they have no information to communicate to each other. Each being under precisely the same circumstances, and having the same opportunities of becoming familiar with such events as are usually the subjects of ordinary conversation. Talking to each other therefore would be like an individual talking to himself.
As to the possibility of separating the twins, the surgeon was of two minds—it might be done safely, yet he would not be willing to do it. He explained:
My own impression as well as that of several distinguished surgeons with whom I have conversed, is, that it could be accomplished by means not more hazardous in their consequences than many to which persons often voluntarily submit, with a view to relief of some disease only remotely endangering life. . . . The separation I think may be considered practicable, though not unattended with danger. If it were, who would urge it where there is such perfect union of feeling and concert of action; whilst they are healthy and active; happy and gay; and withal quite contented with their lot. At present I would be unwilling to disunite them, even if it could be accomplished without pain and without danger.
The question of the separation of the twins, in America at least, had been resolved for the time being. The two would remain one. But this question was to continue to be the incessant theme of Chang-Eng's lives. Their weeping at the mere mention of separation during their youth would, years later, turn into weeping at the pronouncement of doctor after doctor that separation "would be attended with the most dangerous consequences."
However, at this stage any talk of separating the twins was mere talk, and possibly fodder contrived for publicity. The fact was, at eighteen, Chang and Eng did not want to be separated. And the fact was, no matter what their public utterances to the contrary, neither Robert Hunter nor Captain Abel Coffin wanted the twins separated. In England, Hunter at one point remarked that the connecting band was becoming more cartilaginous as time went on—a condition which, if it continued, would make the possibility of separation more feasible. But he added that "a dissolution of the partnership is not likely to be attempted so long as union is so profitable to the firm." Unfeeling as that remark may have been, Hunter was right.
It was to greater profits that the two entrepreneurs now turned their full attention. The United Brothers had been in the United States a brief two months and had proved to be a promising box-office draw. Hunter, who had been spreading the news about them in London, believed that the twins would be an even bigger draw in the British Isles. He convinced Captain Coffin of this, and they determined to bring their common investment to London as soon as possible. Coffin, after consulting with their booking agent, young James Hale, saw another advantage in this transatlantic trip. The British press was far more hospitable to exotic prodigies than any other press on earth. The attention that the twins might receive in London and throughout the British Isles, the fame that would attend them if they had a great success, would ensure an even greater success in the countless smaller cities of the United States, where a foreign build-up counted for much.
With his thoughts on a well-planned series of future exhibits in every nook and cranny of the Eastern, Southern, and Midwestern parts of the United States, and on the steady profits that might accrue therefrom, Captain Coffin set his sights on England.
He told Chang and Eng that they were through with New York for the time. They were to prepare for London.
For their part, the twins were ready for anything that might provide them with more adventure—and more fame.