The Bunker families continued to grow. As more and more children arrived, the twins realized that the income from the farm would not provide for their eventual education.
There was one avenue open to Chang and Eng: once again to show themselves before the public as freaks, after ten years in retirement. It was a difficult decision, for the twins were known for being "great homebodies," and undoubtedly they had dreamed that settling in North Carolina would free them forever from the rigors of public life.
In 1849, their old friend Dr. Edmund H. Doty approached the twins with an offer to exhibit them under his management. Doty wanted to show the twins with two of their daughters—Katherine and Josephine, each aged five—for eight months, with an option for four months more.
After much deliberation, the twins agreed, with these terms: that their salary would be $8,000 annually but would be paid monthly; that all expenses would be covered by Doty; that they would not travel at night except by steamboat or train; that they would have first-class accommodations; and that their working day would be only six hours long.
On April 25, 1849, Chang and Eng went to New York to renew their professional lives. The series of exhibitions proved to be unsuccessful. Perhaps Doty's management was poor, or perhaps the twins had already been overexposed in that area, or possibly the competition was too great—Tom Thumb, the famous midget, was all the rage in New York at that time. A letter from R. E. Martin, a friend of the twins, had forewarned them that "Gen. Tom Thumb is the Lion of the City at present." Perhaps the Siamese Twins, renowned though they were, were no longer unusual enough to usurp Tom Thumb's seat of popularity.
After a mere six-week stay in New York, the twins and their daughters returned to North Carolina with nothing to show for their trouble but an IOU from Doty (he paid them a third of the amount due some years later).
Despite their disappointment, the twins accepted another offer made them by a Mr. Howes. This time they were to be paid weekly. The new excursion was a lengthy one—twelve months, beginning in April 1853.
As before, two of the young Bunkers were brought along on the trip. Eng again took Katherine, his oldest child, but this time Chang took Christopher, his oldest son.
Following an appearance in Boston on April ii, the twins covered the Rhode Island Sound area and the Connecticut River Valley, making stops in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Then they made an extensive tour of the coastal towns of New Hampshire and Maine as they headed for New Brunswick, Canada. They continued on to Nova Scotia, Canada, crossed Nova Scotia to reach the Atlantic Ocean side, then boarded a ship to return to the United States. Next, they exhibited in Connecticut; western Massachusetts; the Albany, New York, area; New England's Green Mountains area; moved on to Quebec and upstate New York; and then backtracked to central New York, returning to New York City on November 20. They stayed in New York for some time, then resumed their travels to outlying villages.
In all, the twins visited 130 towns and cities.
The entourage generally sought towns that were approximately fifteen to twenty-five miles apart, which usually involved a day's journey by coach. In the twelve months of the tour, the group traveled a grand total of almost 4,700 miles. Chang and Eng were
old traveling hands, of course, but for Christopher and Katherine it was a memorable adventure.
Wherever they went, the twins constantly hoped to find letters awaiting them that would report on their homes and families. Elisha Barnum, a friend of the Bunkers' in Mount Airy, wrote to tell the twins the news of the crops.
A second friend, Robert Gilmer, also wrote, having received a letter from Chang and Eng. He informed them that "Sarah [Eng's wife] was at my house and yesterday she says that they have got all the rye sowed and a good part of the crop of corn gathered and says that she thinks they will make corn aplenty to do them she says that Mr McKinney says they have the best crop that you have ever had on the place."
A rare letter exists from this trip, written by Chang and Eng themselves to their wives and children. Rare, because it is one of the handful of letters extant which was actually written by the twins rather than dictated by them to someone else. While it would appear that the average letter writer of the 1800's could not spell properly, the twins' spelling was particularly unusual. The letter, dated November 29, 1853, indicated that they were still being exhibited by their new manager, Mr. Howes:
Dear Wives & Children
We have recieved your of the 22—this day & glad to fine you all well — We got here last Sunday night week—Mr Howes say he want us to stay here till news year. . . . Cathrine & Christ have had very bad cold—but quet well now & fat — Great many our old friends has come to see us they all say they would like to see all our families together not only friends but the visitor also We are glad Mr. Coud has call on you — Please tell Mr Gilmer we shall write to him shortly you may tell him that if he can not get the corm 25 cents per bushele not to buy at all. . . . We and children want to Mr Hale last Sunday & took dinner their house Our house next Mr Bray—we wanted rent out again just tell Mr Gilmer to have it rented for the best term he can not less than $25 — We wanted you to tell Mr Gilmer if any money come to us from Bound tell to put in Mr G Handerson of Philad we shall call for it let us know — Our master Mr Howes take in last week not lest than $300o—but his expence are very hie say from 2 to 225 dollars a day — Be side he has 5 or 6 defferend show—they all bring in money — We think none bring so much money as the Siamese Twins & thir children
Good night 12 oclock
at night
all well your as ever C & E B
Christ & Kate are sound sleep now—write soon
There was another letter, probably written by Eng personally, from Baltimore on March 19, 1854—at the very end of their long tour:
Dear Wives & Children
We are happy to enform you that Kate is getting well fast—& also Chris—we want you to write to us when you recieved this to .Petterburgh Va be sure to put Siamese Twins to it
We have writen to you a few day ago telling you bout Kate having the measles—thank god she is nearly well—we have seen good many our old friends here — We are long to be home the time past off very slow with us we hope when we come to fine you all well
in haste yours as ever
C & E BUNKER
When Chang and Eng returned to North Carolina from the tour, the home they returned to was no longer their common home. Before their departure, a change had taken place. While their financial pressures had temporarily eased, there had remained another pressure that continued to grow more and more nerve-racking. This was their worsening domestic situation. On the surface, it seemed to be simply an overpopulation problem. By the summer of 1852, Eng's Sallie had had her sixth child, and Chang's Adelaide her fifth. There were fifteen members in the house, besides the servants. The Chang and Eng families had become too large to contain within the confines of their farmhouse. But there was more beneath the surface. Two wives under one roof were one too many. Adelaide and Sallie had to be together in the kitchen, at the dining table, in the parlor, and still share their husbands in the single oversized communal bed. With the lack of privacy, bickering and resentment intensified.
Another major difficulty, according to Zacharias Haynes, Chang's son-in-law, was that the two families of children had often been at odds: "The families lived together ten years after they were married, and of course the children could not at all times agree, and this was and would be the constant source of trouble, so long as the families remained together.... In truth, instances of two large families being brought up in the same house in perfect love, peace and harmony are very rare, and this is the true cause of the families being separated."
In 1852, an experimental separation had been instigated. Adelaide had taken a house in the town of Mount Airy, while Sallie remained on the farm. Then, after three years, Sallie had also moved her brood into a different house in Mount Airy. But, apparently, none of them were happy with the impermanence of their situation and their distance from the farm.
By 1857, the twins realized something drastic had to be done.
Surely, the four Bunkers had discussed their strange togetherness many times, seeking a permanent solution that would admit more privacy and comfort. Now, in 1857, the four consulted over the matter, and at last a kind of solution was found based on their Mount Airy experiment. It was decided that each family should have a separate house, its own house on its own farm.
Immediately, a thorny question arose: How was their common property to be divided? While ill feeling between the brothers was not the cause for the move, the situation was still similar to a couple getting a divorce after being married for many years and owning everything in common. An arbitrator was necessary. To assure fair play, the twins called in three of their neighbors, men who were, according to Judge Graves, "... good, honest men in whom they could both confide, and men of sound judgement. ... Owing to the situation, or rather the location of the real estate the land was not equally divided; but much the most valuable part was given to Chang; and in order to equalize the partition the deficiency in value was made up in slaves to Eng. Eng was never satisfied with the division but he determined to abide by it and did not complain."
Eng retained the original house they had built after moving from Trap Hill, and improved it, while the twins went to work building a house for Chang and his family, a mile away from Eng's house.
Along with the division of property, the Bunkers divided their time, and they devised a unique but sensible rule based on their practice in earlier years when Sallie lived in Trap Hill and Adelaide in Mount Airy: they decided they would spend three days at one brother's house, and then three days at the other's, alternating residences at the end of every third day. For three days Chang and Eng would dwell in Chang's house with his Adelaide and his children, leaving Sallie alone with her children in her house. Then Chang and Eng would board their carriage and drive over to Eng's house to spend three days with Sallie and Eng's children, leaving Adelaide and her family behind in her house.
The moment that Chang's house was ready, this arrangement was begun, and would be maintained without change for the rest of their lives. The routine of three days in each house never varied. It became a sacred and inflexible rule. No emergency, hardship, or even illness was considered cause for a break in the arrangement. On one occasion, a child of the twin at whose house they were staying unexpectedly died on the last day of their visit. But since that evening was the time set for the three-day move, move they did. The lone wife left behind tended to the funeral, as well as to her surviving children and the housekeeping chores.
Another aspect of the agreement was that each twin was to be absolute master in his own house. Whatever the host twin did, the joined brother had to agree to silently, without protest. In fact, the visiting twin was not even allowed to discuss his personal business with anyone while at his brother's home, but had to wait until the three days were up to handle his affairs.
When the pair moved into Chang's house, said a descendant of Dr. Hollingsworth, "Eng willed himself out of the picture, his desires suppressed, his opinions unexpressed, his judgment unspoken. He was a silent partner."
An old clipping from an unidentified local newspaper in another descendant's scrapbook described the twins' pact: "When Eng would enter the house of Chang, he would maintain steadfast silence until [the three days had] elapsed and he returned to his own house. It was as if he did not exist. He said nothing, did nothing save eat and sleep, saw nothing and was nothing. When the [time] was done Chang entered upon the role of self-effacement and went with Eng to the latter's house. In his active [time Eng] lived actively, and transacted all of his business. In his quiescent [time] he was as if he was not."
From available evidence, the arrangement worked well, and alleviated considerable conflict between the families.
However, by 1860, with two houses and farms to support instead of one, and with steadily expanding broods of children, Chang and Eng realized that their financial resources were slowly being depleted. Faced with the necessity of supplementing the income from their farms, they felt they had no choice but to return once more to show business.
They had covered the terrain of America's East, South, Midwest so extensively, and so often, that they were reluctant to go over the same ground again. They sought elsewhere for virgin territory, and were quickly aware that one promisingly lucrative area that had not seen them at all was America's Far West. Distant California had been much in the news—and on the twins' minds—in the previous twelve years. California had become news not long after the momentous morning of January 24, 1848, when James Marshall, a contractor and builder for his landlord, John Sutter, had discovered some flakes of gold in the shallows of a stream in Coloma, near what would become Sacramento, California. An excited Marshall had hastened to show the bright flakes to Sutter, who sent them down to San Francisco for scientific tests—and within a month the incredible California Gold Rush was under way.
The influx of gold-greedy miners from every corner of the world, all seeking overnight riches, was overwhelming to California's handful of old-time settlers. At the time of Marshall's discovery, California had had a population of 20,000 residents. A year later the population was five times as large. Four years after the discovery, there were 225,000 people in California. By 186o, the year the twins were contemplating a trip to California, the population had soared to 380,000. The population would have been much higher had it not been for the fact that California was difficult to reach—all modes of transportation were slow, tedious, hazardous, expensive.
In North Carolina, Chang and Eng reasoned that California's new affluence, plus its isolation and hunger for amusements, made it fair game for two of the most famous entertainers in the world. Chang and Eng decided to join the Gold Rush—not to mine the gold in the hills, but rather the gold in the miners' pockets.
But it was not money alone that attracted Chang and Eng to the Far West. They had another reason for going to California. They wanted to see their home again—their original home—one last time. They wanted to return to Siam, to Meklong, which they had not seen in thirty-one years, for a sentimental visit. The trip to California would bring them closer to their native Siam than they had been in all those absent years, and the journey from California to Siam would be a relatively pleasant and easy one.
In the time since they had become husbands and fathers, Chang and Eng had not been entirely uninformed about their mother Nok, their stepfather Sen, their brother Noy, and their sister, who was said to have become one of the wives of a polygamous Bangkok nobleman. Their main informant had been Robert Hunter, who erratically sent them messages about their family in Siam. However, in 1844, the twins had got a more detailed account of their family through a secondhand source, a friend who had received a letter from two Christian missionaries in Siam. The missionaries, the Reverend William Benel and his unnamed colleague, had visited Meklong and then written the following:
Early in the afternoon we went in search of the mother of the Siamese twins, and were so happy as to find a man who conducted us directly to her house. On learning that we had brought intelligence respecting her absent children, whom she supposed to be dead, she gave us a hearty welcome. We assured her that they were living when we last heard from America and that they had recently married sisters in one of the Southern states. With this intelligence she was much gratified and expressed much affection for them. . . . She is of lighter complexion than most Siamese women, and has every appearance of having once had great energy of character. It seems that both her husbands were China men and that she herself had a Chinese father, so that the twins are in no sense Siamese, except that they were born in Siam.
In this same period, a relative of the Yates family, Mrs. Roper-Feudge, who had been to Siam and known the twins' mother, was planning to visit Siam once more. She had approached the twins and offered to deliver any message from them to their family. Chang and Eng had consulted one another in their native tongue, and then Chang had spoken to Mrs. Roper-Feudge for both of them: "Tell our mother we will see her some day—as soon as we have enough money to make the trip."
But Chang and Eng had delayed their reunion with their mother too long a time. Eleven years earlier, in 1849, they had heard from another missionary in Siam, the Reverend Samuel R. House. His envelope contained two letters—one from himself, another from their brother Noy—reporting one piece of distressing news. The news was that the twins' beloved mother, Nok, had died the year before. The Reverend House's letter read:
BANGKOK KINGDOM OF SIAM. Jan 29, 1849
Messrs Chang and Eng.
This letter comes to you from a far off country—the country far away over the sea where you were born. It comes to you from one who though he has never seen you is your friend, and it will give you tidings of your aged mother whom I am sure you have not forgotten, tho' more than 20 years have gone by since you saw her last.
A month or two ago I was journeying with another missionary from Bang Kok to Petchaburn (Pripee) when we stopped at Meklong to see if any of your friends were still living there. Your older brother, Noy, the only one of the family left now, told us he wished to send a letter written in Siamese we would transmit into English and send it on to you. So on our return 5 or 6 days after he handed us the enclosed. Along with the translation I send the sounds of the Siamese words written down in English letters. Five years ago your mother heard from a missionary who called to see her that you were still living and that you had bought a farm in . . . "Amerikan" and had married wives there and very glad was she to be told of this for she had long thought you dead. She herself breathed her last one year ago.
Your brother "Noy" gets his living like most of his neighbors at Meklong by raising ducks and fishing. How well off he is I can not say. His house, though not perhaps so poor as some around him, would still look very poor to you.
The Reverend House's translation accompanied Noy's letter, which was written with a blunt instrument in Siamese characters, on rough paper:
The second month, first day of the New moon (Siamese year) i208 (A.D. 1848, Dec. 25). This letter the older brother, Noy, who is the elder brother, sends to Mr. In and Mr. Chun [Eng and Chang] because he thinks exceedingly much of his younger brothers. Moreover father Sen died in the year of the rabbit the 5th day of the full moon of the 1st month (Dec. 14, 1843), and mother Nok, the mother of Mr. In and Mr. Chun died on the year of the goat, first month, 6th day of full moon (Dec. 28, 1847) If Mr. In and Mr. Chun when they understand this letter saying that Noy, the elder brother sends a letter to Mr. In and Mr. Chun, and saying that Mother Nok the mother of Mr. In and Mr. Chun when the old lady was about to die directed Noy, the elder brother, saying "Should In and Chun think to return the favors of their father and mother let them ... come back and do works of merit in reference to their deceased father and mother; then they may go back, their elder brother will not object. Moreover mother, when dying, thought exceedingly much of Mr. In and Mr. Chun, saying "they have been gone a long time, many years and I have not seen any letter sent, arrive at all. How are they? I do not know in the least.... If they cannot come, they can let a letter be sent. If they would wish to let their elder brother know, then let Mr. In and Mr. Chun send something that will be a token by which the elder brother can know whether Mr. In and Mr. Chun are doing well or no. As for Noy, the older brother of Mr In and Mr. Chun, he is already growing old and with great difficulty gets a living. He thinks of, he looks to, Mr. In and Mr. Chun with extreme interest. The older brother is left alone in the world and has no one to look to at all. He thinks of Mr. In and Mr. Chun very much indeed. This letter Noy, the elder brother, sends the and month, first day of full moon. It is a token.
Chang and Eng were grief-stricken to receive word of their mother's death, and anxious to comply with her deathbed wish that they return to Siam and pay homage to their deceased mother and stepfather's memory. No doubt, too, the twins felt guilty after their older brother's letter pointed out their long neglect of him. They may have wanted to go to Siam at once, but no immediate opportunity presented itself. At the time, the twins were deeply involved with their own wives and offspring, with family support, and so the visit to their native land had had to be constantly postponed.
Now at last the right time had come for a trip to Siam. And the trip to California would provide a convenient departure point.
The journey to far-off California, the twins knew, was a long and arduous one, and they had to decide by what conveyances and by which route to make the trip. In i86o, there were four ways of reaching California. There was the traditional journey from New York by clipper ship around Cape Horn—circling all of South America—to San Francisco. It was the safest of the four routes—although eleven passenger ships had been lost in heavy seas and storms since the Gold Rush—but it was also the longest of the trips. The passage from New York to California around Cape Horn took about a hundred days. Then there was the land route from the Midwest to California. Just two years earlier, Butterfield's overland stagecoach had begun a regular run from Missouri to California, leaving for the West eight times a month. To take this land route meant that the twins would have to travel from North Carolina largely by canal boats and trains to Missouri, and there catch the Butterfield stage to California, traveling 2,800 miles, much of it through dangerous Indian country.
The other two routes combined sea and land travel, each in a complicated journey. The first of these meant traveling from New York to San Juan, Nicaragua. There were no docking facilities, and passengers had to be carried piggyback by natives from a small boat to the shore. After that, in intense heat, Nicaragua would be traversed on mules, horseback, in oxcarts, by schooner. The inconvenience and perils were many: no dining places, no hotel beds (only hammocks), exorbitant prices, swindlers and rob-bers, cholera. Once on the Pacific Ocean side, the twins would have had to await a ship to San Francisco. There was an alternate sea and land route that had become increasingly popular. By this route the twins would take a paddle-wheel steamer from New York to Aspinwell, Panama, then cross the Isthmus of Panama to Panama City, and there pick up a luxurious steamship to San Francisco. Only six years earlier, this route also had been hazardous, since the strip of Isthmus had to be crossed on foot, on mules, and in small boats, pushing through terrible jungles and malaria-ridden swamps. But in 1855, a railroad running from one side of the Isthmus to the other had been opened, and now the land journey could be made quickly and safely.
For Chang and Eng, the choice was simple—they would go to California by the Isthmus of Panama route.
However, a month before starting for California, Chang and Eng decided to give one more exhibit in New York. Although the twins had exhibited under the auspices of a great many managers during their lifetime, the one they were about to work for was the most extraordinary of all their sponsors. He was fifty-year-old Phineas T. Barnum, the foremost American showman, the legendary promoter of the bizarre and the unusual. Contrary to popular belief, the twins had little to do with Barnum in their long career, yet tradition was forever to link them closely to the impresario who became known as the Prince of Humbug.
Phineas T. Barnum was born in Bethel, Connecticut, in 181o. He was only nineteen years old when Chang and Eng arrived in America in 1829. Barnum's first profession was that of storekeeper, like his father before him. After that, Barnum went into the lottery business, and then tried publishing his own newspaper, The Herald of Freedom, in Danbury.
Barnum, ambitious to the core, saw that he could not realize his dreams of greatness and excitement in ordinary endeavors. At last, in 1835, he found his true calling. He became a showman. What set him on his lifetime's course was a strange discovery. He was brought face to face with President George Washington's Negro nurse, Joice Heth, 161 years of age.
A friend of Barnum's, Coley Bartram, had found this marvel, and possessed proof of her age—a fading bill of sale that had belonged to the Washingtons. Bartram took Barnum to visit the ancient governess on display in Philadelphia, and this is what Barnum saw as he recorded it later in his autobiography:
She was lying upon a high lounge in the middle of the room. She was apparently in good health and spirits, but former disease or old age, perhaps both combined, had rendered her unable to change her position; in fact, although she could move one of her arms at will, her lower limbs were fixed in their position, and could not be straightened. She was totally blind, and her eyes were so deeply sunken in their sockets that the eyeballs seemed to have disappeared altogether. She had no teeth, but possessed a head of thick bushy gray hair. Her left arm lay across her breast, and she had no power to remove it. The fingers of her left hand were drawn so as nearly to close it and remained fixed and immovable. The nails upon that hand were about four inches in length, and extended above her wrist. The nails upon her large toes had also grown to the thickness of nearly a quarter of an inch.
Barnum decided that she could as easily be "a thousand years old as any other age." Bartram offered to sell her for $3,000, but Barnum's innate haggling ability brought the price down to $1,000.
Barnum's real career took off from there, and while the newspapers called Joice "an animated mummy" and "a loathesome old wench," the public could not get enough. Joice reminisced about "dear little George," sang hymns, and chatted with her audiences.
When Joice Heth died in 1836, a doctor examined her corpse and declared that she was certainly not over eighty years old. Barnum was scandalized, or at least he pretended to be. Whatever the truth of the matter was, Barnum began to acquire his reputation as a "humbug." This did not hinder the advancement of his career, however; perhaps the surge of publicity even helped it.
Barnum's greatest discovery did not come until many years later, when he chanced upon Charles S. Stratton, better known as General Tom Thumb. Barnum met Stratton, the son of a poor New England family, when the boy was five years old. Stratton was twenty-eight inches in height, and weighed a mere fifteen pounds. His feet were three inches long. Barnum recognized at once a salable oddity in the intelligent little fellow. After having arrived at a financial agreement with Stratton's parents, Barnum christened the boy "General Tom Thumb" for dramatic effect, and began to show him on exhibition.
In the United States and in Europe, Tom Thumb was a raging success. As well as being a box-office smash, he was a personal favorite of Queen Victoria and assorted European nobility. During the course of his long association with Barnum, Tom Thumb distinguished himself by leading an extravagant life. He enjoyed such luxuries as playing miniature billiards and sailing on his Lilliputian yacht. He eventually married Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump, who was thirty-two inches tall and weighed twenty-nine pounds.
The discovery and promotion of the world's most famous midget launched P. T. Barnum into true stardom. In later years, besides Chang and Eng, Barnum continued to have remarkable successes. Jenny Lind, dubbed "The Swedish Nightingale" because of her extraordinary voice, and Jumbo the giant elephant, twelve feet tall and weighing six and a half tons, were but two of his coups.
The place where Barnum displayed all his wonders was the American Museum, an imposing five-story marble building located at 218-222 Broadway, in New York City. The museum had originally been founded in 1780, and already housed a collection of oddities from around the world, largely donated by sea captains who had made exotic voyages. Barnum purchased the museum in 1842, filled it with unusual acts and exhibits, and made it the most famous showcase of its kind in American history. The museum remained an unparalleled success until June 1.865, when it fell afoul of an arsonist and burned to the ground. This did not halt Barnum's career, however, and he went on from sensation to sensation. He lived to be sixty-two, spending much of his last years writing nine published versions of his autobiography.
Now, in October 186o, before leaving for California, Chang and Eng, accompanied by two of Eng's sons, twelve-year-old Montgomery and ten-year-old Patrick, arrived in New York to fulfill a short engagement at Barnum's American Museum, for which they were paid $100 a week. After several appearances, an advertisement in The New York Times announced they would be exhibited daily:
BARNUM'S AMERICAN MUSEUM
Under the personal supervision of. . . P. T. BARNUM
EVERY DAY AND EVENING THIS WEEK
COMMENCING MONDAY, OCT. 15 186o
Last week but one of the
ONLY LIVING SIAMESE TWINS,
CHANG AND ENG, WHO, WITH TWO OF THEIR CHILDREN
will be on exhibition Day and Evening. Those who have ever seen these most wonderful and extraordinary human beings, know them to be the most interesting and curious of all objects, while those who do not, need only to be told that they are TWO LIVING MEN 49 YEARS OLD, SO INSEPARABLY UNITED AT THE PIT OF THE STOMACH that what one feels the other does . . .
Barnum was known worldwide and the Siamese Twins were internationally famous when they met and decided to work together, and therein lay part of their problem. From the beginning, they did not get along. Chang and Eng did not like Barnum, and he did not like them.
Barnum resented the twins from the start. Some say that it irritated him not to have discovered them himself. Much of the affection Barnum felt for his attractions came from finding them, developing them, and making them famous. Chang and Eng were self-made men, already household words, and they never needed P. T. Barnum. Furthermore, Barnum considered the twins too independent-minded, and sensed their dislike for him and grow-ing reluctance to be public property.
As for Chang and Eng, they disapproved of Barnum from the first, finding him to be tight-fisted and exploitive. They were not the only ones to accuse him of such traits. Many years later, one of Eng's sons, Patrick Bunker, remarked in an interview, ". . . they never liked Barnum. He was too much of a Yankee, and wanted too much for his share of the money, and my father and uncle were close figurers themselves."
Nevertheless, the showman and the twins contracted to work together, because each side saw that it could make profit out of the other.
It was while Chang and Eng were showing at Barnum's American Museum, on October 13, 186o, that they received an important royal visitor. Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII of England, had just begun an American tour. One of the sights he wanted to see was Barnum's place. He was driven there in a carriage. What followed was reported by The New York Times:
The Museum was HI of people. By causing the performance in the lecture-room to commence half an hour earlier than usual, Mr. Greenwood [Barnum's assistant manager] was enabled to clear the corridor somewhat, but as soon as the distinguished guests arrived, crowds began to pour in. The people, however, kept at a respectful distance from the Prince, and he had ample opportunity to see everything. He availed himself of it to the fullest extent. He examined the "What is it?" [it was Zip, the Man Monkey, an African pinhead Barnum promoted as the missing link, actually a deformed, intelligent Negro named William Jackson] with interest, and when Mr. Greenwood told the man in charge of the curiosity that he need not repeat its history, the Prince interposed and requested the man to tell him all about it. He heard him with attention, then proceeded through the building inspecting the Albino family, the twins from Siam ...
The Prince of Wales was intrigued by the Siamese Twins, and examined them closely. Leaving, the prince asked for Mr. Barnum. He was told that Barnum had not expected him and was at his home in Bridgeport. "Ah," said the prince, "we have missed the most interesting feature of the establishment."
As the twins neared the end of their exhibit for Barnum, there was some talk of their traveling on the road with a Barnum carnival after their return from California. This the twins would not consider. Later, when Barnum became a circus man, first with William Coup, then with James A. Bailey, the twins would have no part of working with him. They were proud of the fact that they had never in their lives participated in an American circus.
On November 12, 1860, having completed their engagement for Barnum, Chang and Eng, together with Eng's sons, boarded the paddle-wheel steamer Northern Light in New York harbor for the first portion of their journey, the sea voyage to Aspinwell, Panama.
Unlike many of the vessels on this run, the Northern Light was a splendid ship. It was made of oak, locust, and cedarwood and painted dark green, with a gold scroll decorating the prow. The ship was 26o feet long, 4o feet wide, and weighed 2,057 tons. It belched coal smoke from two funnels, and the coal it burned propelled the paddle-wheel on each side. It was also fitted with two masts for sails, to be used in an emergency. A feature of the ship was the vast dining saloon, located in the center of the main deck and extending from one side of the ship to the other, thereby providing plenty of light and ventilation.
What was most noteworthy about the Northern Light was that it was owned by sixty-six-year-old "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, a blustering, bewhiskered financial pirate whose earlier ships had a reputation as bad as his own. In 1838, steamers had come into use in the United States for passenger travel, cargo, and mail, and Vanderbilt saw their promise early. Quickly, he parlayed a single two-masted barge into a shipping company that owned one hundred steamers. Through price wars, bribery, and stock-market manipulations, Vanderbilt accumulated $100 million and became the richest man in America.
By 1858 a fierce competition existed between Vanderbilt's Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Company and the Pacific Mail. The rivalry between them was bitter, but in February, 1860, eight months before the twins would leave New York on the Vanderbilt steamer—an agreement was reached between the two warring companies. Vanderbilt's fleet would take complete control of the Atlantic traffic, and Pacific Mail's line would confine itself to the Pacific Ocean.
Vanderbilt was notorious for the poor pay and hard conditions he imposed on his captains. His crews were frequently inadequate for the overwhelming workload, and it was not uncommon for crew members to die of exhaustion during a voyage. While the vessels of the Pacific Mail had "a splendid reputation," the Vanderbilt ships were known as "floating pigsties."
Chang and Eng might have been aware of the conditions that could confront them. The Northern Light had been built to carry nine hundred passengers, but there were often more than a thousand persons aboard. As a result of the overcrowding, there were not enough benches in steerage for all the passengers to lie on at night, and many bribed the stewards to get even this meager space.
"This is on a par with all the rest of the Vanderbilt coterie's grasping conduct," wrote the Panama Star Herald the very year the twins boarded the Vanderbilt ship. "With them the 'almighty dollar' is not only the primary, but the only consideration, and the 'dear public' once within their clutches, have literally got to `sweat it out' until the end of the voyage; and we really believe if one of their vessels were to sink with a full living cargo on board, the Company would only lament the loss of their ship, and never give a second thought to the sacrifice of life."
While this criticism was harsh, it was confirmed by many other writers. One, reporting a few years later on another Vanderbilt ship headed for Panama, wrote:
Although it is very dark, you will observe that the benches around the ship's rail are filled with human beings. Some are stretched full length, others half reclining. You will see as you inspect these benches females in the close embrace of the sterner sex, their heads reclining in the most loving manner on the shoulders of their male protectors. You will naturally enough suppose them to be husband and wife or sister and brother. They are in some cases, but more frequently are not, but only a couple whose acquaintance dates back to the ship's sailing, or probably a shorter time. . . . Around the mainmast is a dark mass composed of forty or fifty persons, of all ages and both sexes, heaped together en masse, and all apparently are sound asleep. . . . We . . . go down into the second cabin. . . . Directly at the foot of the steps, lying on her back, is an Irish woman weighing not less than two hundred and fifty pounds. She is almost without clothing, so great is the heat. Around her, like a litter of pigs, are five children, the eldest being five years of age. Every berth is filled. Women can be seen in this second cabin who have apparently lost all sense of decency, who at home would cover the legs of a piano, so particular were they in regard to anything appearing naked.
The same writer pointed out, "There are four water closets for the use of about three hundred people of the first and second cabin."
While these sordid conditions may have prevailed on the Northern Light, Chang and Eng and the children apparently did not suffer from them, since in their correspondence after they reached their final destination they offered no complaints. Perhaps this was because they were traveling first class, where accommodations were relatively luxurious.
After an eight-day voyage, the Northern Light arrived in Aspinwell (now Colon). A small steamer from the port met the ship and brought the passengers and baggage to the wharf. A short time later, Chang and Eng and Eng's offspring boarded a wood-burning train that would take them across the Isthmus to Panama City on the Pacific side.
The train was, of course, a relatively new innovation. With the coming of the Gold Rush, William H. Aspinwall, owner of the Pacific Mail line, who had made $4 million in shipping, decided that the forty-seven miles of Isthmus jungles and swampland was too dangerous and too slow to cross on foot or by mule. In April 1849, Aspinwell formed the Panama Railroad Company, established the port that was named after him, and set out to build a railroad from the Atlantic side to the Pacific side of the Isthmus. Laborers were recruited from many nations, including 705 opium-addicted coolies from China. In the five years of construction, eight hundred workers died of numerous causes, most falling prey to cholera, yellow fever, and deadly reptiles. On January 28, 1855, the first train crossed the forty-seven miles between Aspinwell and Panama City—and the journey from New York to San Francisco was cut to one-fourth the time, since it was no longer necessary to sail around the Horn.
Now, on November 20, 1860, Chang and Eng and Eng's sons entered a passenger car of this train—there were fifty-six other passengers in the car—and in three hours and ten minutes they had traveled across the Isthmus to alight at Panama City on the other side.
Chang and Eng did not linger long in Panama City. A ship of the Pacific Mail line, the Uncle Sam, was waiting for them at the island of Flamenco, a dozen miles outside Panama City. The Bunker entourage joined other passengers on a small steamer that ferried them across the water to their San Francisco-bound ship.
The sea voyage from Panama City to San Francisco took sixteen days. The only description of the voyage—in fact, of the entire trip from New York—was provided by one of Eng's sons, who wrote about it to his brothers and sisters in North Carolina four days after his arrival in San Francisco:
"My dear brothers and Sisters we are all well and i hope these few lines will find you all the same We was twenty four days coming from New york to California Thier was about 6 six hundred pashingers on Bord of Ship We saw a plenty of whales I was sea sick a little We was eight days Coming from Newyork to Aspenwall and we got on the cars and went to Panima And we got on the boat at Panima the Boats name was Unkle San We was sixteen Days Coming from Panima to California We was very much received that we do not receive any more leters We saw plenty of flying fish We have plenty of green corn and beens and pease we Saw a Plenty of Coaker nuts & coakernuts Trees we stoped at a litle place to get coal [the "little place" was Acapulco, where the ship stopped to take on coal] . . ."
The Uncle Sam docked at the Folsom Street wharf in San Francisco on December 6, 1860. The first announcement of the twins' imminent arrival had appeared in print four days earlier in a front-page dispatch delivered to the Alta California, the ten-year-old San Francisco daily, by pony express. The dispatch carried the first-class passenger list of those who had left New York for San Francisco, and the twins were introduced to California's first city almost casually: "C A Eastman and family, Miss Thompson, Mrs J D Farwell, Miss E Elliot, Jas Findla and wife, Mrs C J Dempster, Rev J A Benton, Rich'd Hockman and wife, Col Perry, Mrs E Brown and family, H H Smith, J Sands and wife, Siamese Twins and children . . ."
Now, at last, Chang and Eng were in fabled San Francisco, in a new metropolis that had never seen them, prepared to replenish their purses before continuing onward for a nostalgic reunion with their older brother in Siam.
The San Francisco the twins found, and would perform in for almost two weeks, had undergone a drastic transformation in the dozen years since the Gold Rush.
Before the discovery of gold, San Francisco had been a sleepy hamlet consisting of fifty adobe huts and a few hundred inhabitants. With the finding of gold, the hamlet burst into a hodge-podge of a city of 20,000 people. From the shorefront to the nearby hills rose wooden shanties, tents, lean-tos, brick buildings, and abandoned ships' hulls. In those early boom years San Francisco was a raucous, unruly, lawless community dominated, it seemed, by saloons, brothels, hotels, and warehouses.
But the passage of ten years had sobered San Francisco into a growing, prospering, relatively dignified metropolis. The city Chang and Eng saw in 1860 possessed 1,500 new fireproof commercial buildings made of stone and iron, restaurants that served baked hog's head and fricasseed oxtail and three-dollars-a-bottle sherry, a library of 3,000 volumes, 175 major manufacturers, horse-drawn streetcars, neat plank sidewalks, and a population of over 50,000. There were now three major sections to San Francisco. There was the city's main square, the Plaza, filled with merchandise booths and surrounded by hotels, medical buildings, law offices, and a public schoolhouse. There was staid and imposing Montgomery Street, known as the Wall Street of the West. And then there was the Barbary Coast, where the majority of the city's one hundred international houses of prostitution and many gambling halls were to be found. In the decade preceding the arrival of the Siamese Twins, there had been one thousand murders in the community. But four years earlier, the Vigilante Committee, with nine thousand disciplined volunteers, had taken the loose laws into its own hands, tried and hanged killers, deported other criminal elements, and brought about order and safety.
Isolated as it was from the rest of the nation, San Francisco was interested in a continuous supply of entertainment. Some of the entertainment was free. Here, in 186o, flourished forty-one-year old Joshua Norton, a bankrupt merchant who had declared himself emperor of the United States, abolished Congress, banished the Republican and Democratic parties, issued fifty-cent bonds to finance himself, and strolled the streets attired in a general's cap, blue navy uniform, and Chinese umbrella. But most entertainment was paid for, and paid for well, and this was what had originally attracted Chang and Eng to the city. One showman dominated the city's entertainment. He was Tom Maguire, an uneducated New York hack driver turned impresario, who had made a success with his $200,000 Jenny Lind Theatre, had managed the Maguire Opera House, and now owned all of the city's important music halls.
The twins, who had moved into a boardinghouse on Washington Street, were enchanted by San Francisco, but their thoughts were never very far from their families in North Carolina. The twins had been in San Francisco no more than four days when Eng was moved to write a letter home:
Dear wife & children we wanted to know very much how are you coming on. we have not hear from you for 6-weeks. we got two letters from you since we left. i hope you has done hauld the corn from Mr. Whitlock befor now Tell Mary to take care of catle & pigs — i wanted to know very much how mill coming on — most likely we will be back in march — maybe not till may or june — you must tell Mary to have every thing carige on Wright — i leave a truk in n york with Mr. Hale he send it home by way of Marmadow tell Mr. Gilmer if we have any thing to hauld from their to have our truk bring it on too — nothing in them but shoese & coat for Mary — We has not seen much gold yet but hope to get some befor long — i mut bring this close - Hope this will fine you all well & happy take good care of the five — write soon to this Place your has ever E
E BUNKER.
No sooner had Eng posted this letter (via the nine-month-old pony express to St. Joseph, Missouri, at five dollars a half ounce) than he and Chang were ready to get down to business. "We has not seen much gold yet," he had written, "but hope to get some befor long." That very afternoon the twins began their quest for California gold. The Alta California for December io, i86o, announced their opening performance in an advertisement:
THE ORIGINAL & WORLD-RENOWNED
SIAMESE TWINS,
Accompanied by Two of their Children
HAVE ARRIVED
And will Exhibit for a short time, only, at
PLATT'S NEW MUSIC HALL,
on and after
Monday ...... December l0th, 1860
DOORS OPEN DAILY, (Sundays Excepted,) from
2 to 5 P.M., and from 7 to 10 P.M.
ADMISSION 50 CENTS — Children under 9 years of age,
half price.
On December 13, the Alta California publicized the twins with a bit of wordplay: "SIAMESE TWINS — Chang and Eng have already installed themselves in the good graces of the community. They are now fifty years of age. It is not true that Chang is two years older than Eng, as has been asserted—on the ground that Chang is fifty and Eng is fifty-too."
On December 15, the Alta California published a more extensive news story on the twins: "THE SIAMESE TWINS. - The interest in these wonders of nature continues unabated. One of the twins has seven children and the other eight. Two of the boys are with them. The mothers are both living in the Atlantic States. They will not visit Siam, as has been supposed, but after a short jaunt in the interior, will return to the Atlantic States."
This story was the first evidence that Chang and Eng had changed their minds about continuing to Siam after finishing their engagement in San Francisco. What had changed their minds, evidently, was the disquieting news, published daily in the San Francisco press, that the Southern states were preparing to secede from the Union and that a war between the North and South was inevitable. While the twins had been en route to San Francisco, a crucial presidential election campaign had been taking place. The much-feared Abraham Lincoln, Republican, had been pitted against Stephen A. Douglas, Northern Democrat, John C. Breckinridge, Southern Democrat, and John Bell of the Constitutional Union party.
The day after their arrival in San Francisco, Chang and Eng had their first serious intimations of trouble back home. The Alta California carried a front-page story, "Per Pony Express," from its "St. Louis Correspondence" that "up to 10 P.M., Nov. 8, returns of 90,000 votes showed Lincoln 2,000 ahead of Douglas, and Breckinridge behind both." Another front-page account reflected the alarm of the South at the possibility of Lincoln's being elected President. "There is every reason to believe," began the story, "that the Democrats from the Southern States in Congress may attempt to defeat the inauguration of Lincoln, by refusing to declare the result, or to count the votes."
Six days later, the twins read a front-page report in the Alta California that alarmed them further: "South Carolina, it is believed, is determined to precipitate disunion, and will wait for no advice from any quarter."
Meanwhile, all about them in San Francisco, talk was in the air about the likelihood of a civil war. Among Americans in California at the time, there were 74,000 who favored the North and 29,000 who favored the South. There were also many Californians who did not want to become embroiled in a sectional dispute, who felt that California (in its tenth year of statehood) should withdraw from the Union and declare itself a neutral nation, the Pacific Republic. But those who were pro-Union, anti-slavery, anti-South were clearly in control.
Realizing that North Carolina might soon be involved in war, that their wives and children might be in danger, Chang and Eng made their decision not to proceed to Siam. Instead, they hastily determined to conclude their stay in San Francisco, make one side trip of exhibitions for whatever profit it could earn them, and then head for home.
On December 20, 186o, the twins and Eng's sons boarded a shallow paddle-wheel river steamer and sailed north up the Sacramento River toward the raucous new state capital. The year before the Gold Rush, there had been no Sacramento. There had been just a piece of potential real estate, at the fork of the Sacramento River and the American River, near Sutter's Mill. A year later, after the discovery of gold, a townsite had been laid out and a city of tents and wagons populated by 12,000 Argonauts had sprung up. This was Sacramento, the river port which had become the capital of California.
Because Sacramento was isolated from the rest of the state, there was a persistent hunger for outside entertainers. In 1852, the flamboyant dancer Lola Montez, fresh from a series of European love affairs including one with King Ludwig I of Bavaria, had trekked into town to perform for some of its abundant gold. When the miners laughed at her dances, Lola had castigated her audience and walked off the stage. Other, less notorious performers, singers, and actors had followed after Lola and received heartier welcomes. Now, a Californian named William Pridham, employed by Chang and Eng as their advance agent, had booked them into Sacramento.
Their first two public appearances were reviewed in the Sacramento Daily Union on December 22:
"SIAMESE TWINS - The Siamese Twins held their levee at the Forrest Theater yesterday afternoon and evening, and were visited by a large number of citizens. They are introduced to the audience by their agent, who gives a brief sketch of their history, etc.; after which, they mingle with their visitors, conversing freely and pleasantly, in good English. They are accompanied by two sons—boys, of nine and twelve years old—bright and intelligent boys. They will receive visitors again today, at from two to five o'clock this afternoon, and from six to nine this evening. There will be no other opportunity for the present to see them."
After that, Chang and Eng left Sacramento for a month. Most likely, their agent booked them for a series of exhibitions in nearby gold-rich towns such as Marysville, Placerville, Reno, Stockton. Then they were on their way to Sacramento, where on January 25, 1861, they performed for one day.
A week later, the first week in February, Chang and Eng were once more in San Francisco for a single farewell exhibition before heading home. Their final advertisement appeared in the Alta California for February 7:
LAST CHANCE TO SEE!
The World-Renowned
UNITED SIAMESE TWINS!
THESE GREATEST OF LIVING WONDERS
will be on exhibitionat Platt's New Musical Hall on
SATURDAY AFTERNOON and EVENING,
February 9th.
POSITIVELY FOR ONE DAY ONLY!
As they sail for New York on thesteamer of the 11th instant.
On February ii, 1861, Chang and Eng, with Eng's sons Montgomery and Patrick, boarded the 2,864-ton wooden paddle-wheel steamer Golden Age, a veteran of the South Seas, for the journey that would take them back to Panama City. Then they would travel on to Aspinwell, to New York, and finally back to Mount Airy. As they moved up the two-mile-wide Golden Gate strait connecting the Bay with the Pacific Ocean and watched San Francisco fade from view, they could feel pleasure in the fact that their two-month foray into the Far West had been both fascinating and financially successful. But as they turned toward the open sea, they could feel only apprehension—for their own future and the future of their beloved country.