When Chang and Eng disembarked in New York late in August 1870, they knew that they would never travel again.
Immediate medical help was sought for the partially paralyzed Chang.
"Arriving in New York," wrote Judge Graves, "the most skillful physicians were called in and they remained a few days under treatment there, but no indications of improvement appearing they left for home . . ."
Once the twins were reunited with their wives and children in Mount Airy, Chang immediately placed himself under the care of Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth. "All the prescriptions failed to bring about anything like complete restoration," Judge Graves noted, "although after a few weeks there seemed to be some little benefit from the application of cold water. The patient, however, always seemed so averse to the applications of this remedy that he would not consent to a thorough trial of that prescription."
For a while, discouraged, Chang took to his bed, with the vigorous Eng lying alongside him. At last, Dr. Hollingsworth contrived a means by which Chang could become ambulatory.
Chang, according to The People's Press of Winston-Salem, on October 14, 187o, was "now able to be up, but his left hand and leg (the side next to his brother) are useless. He goes with a crutch under his right arm, and his left foot is supported by a leather strap which his brother holds up as he hobbles along." Actually, the newspaper erred in describing Chang's affliction. It was Chang's right hand and leg, not his left, that were useless, and his right foot that was supported by a leather strap that Eng carried.
In this period, a depressed Chang took to drinking more and more heavily, often becoming raging drunk. This added to the strain on their relationship and to the frequency of their quarrels.
After one particularly bitter quarrel—during which one of them, probably Chang, pulled a knife and shouted, "I'm going to cut your gut out!"—Eng had dragged his brother to Dr. Hollingsworth and begged the physician to separate them at once. According to the Philadelphia Medical Times: "Eng affirmed that Chang was so bad that he could live no longer with him; and Chang stated that he was satisfied to be separated, only asking that he be given an equal chance with his brother, and that the band be cut exactly in the middle."
Dr. Hollingsworth, his grandson later remembered, "became exasperated at them and told them that he was anxious to know what the connecting arm contained, that the whole medical world was awaiting their death to find out their secret, that he felt that the operation would prove fatal to them both, but that in the interest of science he would operate immediately."
Then, laying out "knives, saws," and other surgical equipment, the physician commanded, "Very well, just get up on the table and I'll fix you, but which would you prefer, that I should sever the flesh that connects you or cut off your heads? One will produce just about the same results as the other."
This brought Chang and Eng to a quick decision. They calmed down, finally shook hands with each other, and departed.
Sometimes when they saw Dr. Hollingsworth, Chang would say, "We can't live long." The doctor would reassure Chang, and then promise both of them that if either one died, he would be quick to sever them so that the living twin had every chance to survive.
On the other hand, Judge Jesse Graves, who was close to them in these years, played down their differences and insisted that they got along well, considering the circumstances. In the last paragraphs of his unpublished manuscript, he wrote:
During all this time Eng was entirely unaffected, still retaining his usual health and his vivacity of spirits in a wonderful degree when his situation is considered. It was not expected that Chang would ever recover and Eng must have been under constant apprehension of his death at any time, and although the experiments which have been reported had never been made yet they had been examined by the most skillful surgeons and physicians of the world whose opinions were almost unanimous that separation could not be made without fatal result and he must have known that the death of his brother would be the immediate signal for his own dissolution. As the disease of Chang continued its effects began to be apparent in its operations upon the mind, which although not so much impaired as to disqualify him from the management of his business affairs, yet did at times exhibit painful aberration from its original clearness and strength. . . . During his long continued confinement as an in-valid as almost universally happens Chang became somewhat peevish but certainly not more than is common in such cases. The most of the time he was very much resigned and patient, very rarely exhibiting any loss of temper.
To the end of Judge Graves' manuscript was appended a post-script written in a feminine hand, possibly by one of the twins' friends or family, trying to make certain that the world under-stood that in their worst travail the twins still got along:
"Eng's treatment of his brother was very kind and forebearing during all the long period of his sickness, showing great tenderness and affection for him and endeavoring by every means in his power to alleviate his suffering. His kindness was received with the warmest appreciation by Chang, whose disposition was very different from the morose, ill nature so falsely ascribed to him."
Despite the difficulties imposed by Chang's afflictions, the twins continued to be busy with their families and their prospering farms.
In 1870, Chang and Adelaide had nine of their children at home: Christopher, 25; Nancy, 23; Susan, 2o; Victoria, 17; Louise, 14; Albert, 12; Jesse, lo; Margaret Elizabeth, 8; and Hattie, the baby. Hattie had been born less than two years before, on September 12, 1868, indicating that Chang had been sexually active a year before his stroke.
Chang's farm was doing well. He had three young black laborers, as well as his eldest son, Christopher, taking care of his house and 200 acres of farmland. (Chang also owned 350 acres of adjoining unimproved woodland.) He gave his three laborers room and board, and paid them a combined salary of $350 for the entire year. On his farm, Chang had 1 horse, 3 mules, 6 head of cattle, 8 sheep, and 30 pigs. In 1870, Chang's farm produced 50 pounds of beeswax, 200 pounds of butter, 300 pounds of honey, 2 bushels of peas and beans, 20 bushels of Irish potatoes, 80 bushels of sweet potatoes, 50 bushels of winter wheat, 50 bushels of rye, 300 bushels of oats, and 1,500 bushels of Indian corn. Also, Chang was able to sell his orchard products for $200 and his slaughtered animals for $650. In a year, the farm earned him $2,037.
Altogether his holdings were worth $23,000, a considerable sum in 1870.
That same year, Eng and Sallie had six of their children at home: Katherine, 25; James Montgomery, 21; Patrick, 20; Frederick, 13; Rosella, 11; and Robert, 5.
Eng's situation was comfortable, although he had nowhere near the assets that his brother possessed. Besides Grace Gates—Aunt Grace—working as a housekeeper, Eng had one black and one white laborer, along with his son James Montgomery, tending to his house and 100 acres. He also owned 150 acres of unimproved land. His two laborers and Aunt Grace received room and board and a combined salary of $100 a year. Among Eng's assets were 2 horses, 3 mules, 8 head of cattle, 10 sheep, and 20 pigs. In the year 1870, Eng's farm produced 3 pounds of beeswax, 25 pounds of wool, 72 pounds of honey, 150 pounds of butter, 2 tons of hay, 25 bushels of Irish potatoes, 6o bushels of winter wheat, 75 bushels of rye, 30o bushels of oats, and 875 bushels of Indian corn. He earned $100 from his orchard products and $15o from animals slaughtered. His income from the farm for the year was $1,535.
Eng's total assets in 1870 were valued at $7,000, less than a third of his brother's worth.
While the twins were no longer able to help out on their farms as they used to do, they still tried to remain active. One of their outdoor pleasures was riding in their buggy—not only the one-mile ride every three days to change houses and partners, but also pleasure excursions with their children. In April 1873, one such ride had serious consequences. The result was reported in the Su rry Visitor:
"On last Saturday the Siamese twins (Eng and Chang Bunker), who reside three miles from Mt-Airy, started to town in a buggy, with little Lizzie, the daughter of Chang, driving. Before they had proceeded far, the horse ran away, and Lizzie, becoming frightened, jumped from the vehicle, breaking her left hand in two places, while the horse sped on and overturned the buggy, throwing the Twins out and injuring them severely."
Although Chang and Eng no longer corresponded with friends as they used to, they continued to harbor affection for their onetime manager James Hale, and stayed in touch with him. Returning from their last trip to Europe in 1869, they sent a gift to him in New York. When Hale, who had been out of the city, returned a month later and found the gift and the note that accompanied it (which made no mention of Chang's stroke), he promptly wrote to the twins:
I am very much obliged for your kind invitation to visit you this winter, and regret much that I cannot have the pleasure. I hope some of these days that better times will come and that I can afford the money and time to do so .. .
I should like very much to have a look at your family of 26 (and perhaps 28) and wonder how the deuce you manage to be contented on a plantation, where you see comparatively little company, after you have spent so many years in the bustle and confusion of crowds. — I know how heartless and unfeeling the world generally is, and how much comfort a man ought to take at home with his family—still, yours has been such a life of excitement, that I should almost suppose your present quiet would be too much comfort. Do you ever intend to visit New York and the large cities again—many very many would be glad to see you, and I dont doubt you could make it profitable if you were disposed. If you do come, the humble home I have is at your disposal.
The twins did not accept the invitation. They never saw Hale again. He lived on and on, working as a proprietor of a coffee house, a bookseller, a steamboat agent, head of a private mail delivery service, and finally as a notary public in New York until his death at the age of ninety in 1892. Nor did the twins ever visit New York again. They were through with "the bustle and confusion of crowds."
They were also through with publicity. Yet, occasionally, they did receive a member of the press. In 1874, the Wilmington Morning Star carried a story by "A Lady of Wilmington" who had visited Chang and Eng in the summer of 1873:
The houses of the twins are plain country houses, coarsely, but neatly furnished. Their families live a mile apart, this being caused by the incompatibility of temper on the part of their wives, who have been often estranged from each other for weeks at a time. Arriving first at Eng's house, we inquired if the Twins were at home, and being told that they were at the "other house," we went thither.
Upon approaching the house we saw, for the first time, the Siamese Twins, who were standing on the piazza. After alighting from the carriage, assisted by one of Chang's sons, we were cordially met by the Twins. This cordiality surprised us, as we had heard in Mt. Airy that [Chang] frequently insulted visitors, and often positively refused to see them. Upon entering we were ushered into a very large room, which seemed to be the parlor (although it contained a bed), plainly but neatly furnished. The walls were hung with many pictures of the Twins taken in different positions. On one side of the room was a double chair made from the wood and bark of the elm. These the twins occupied after handing us chairs.
To secure the good humor of [Chang] who has always been charged with being the possessor of a disposition less amiable than that of his brother, we spoke in high terms of their beautiful place, of the improvements, the fine crops, etc., and seeing that they were affable and communicative, we plunged in medias res and obtained a cursory history of their lives.
The Lady then spun out a long, and often inaccurate, biography of Chang and Eng from their days in Siam to their "retirement from public gaze and comment" in North Carolina. She next went into their families and present condition:
The oldest of [Chang's] daughters [Nannie] is dying now of consumption. The next daughter (deaf and dumb) married a teacher from the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Raleigh, from which institution she graduated last June. [Chang] had, a few years ago, a stroke of paralysis and since then his irritability had become almost unbearable. They both indulge freely in intoxicating beverages, and when under this influence would threaten to sever violently the ligament which so mysteriously bound them. Many think that this exceeding peevishness was caused by the great fear each had of death as a consequence to himself of the death of the other. Apropos of this, in answer to the question whether they anticipated longevity, they replied, shaking their heads with a sadness which betokened earnestness and sincerity, that they did not, being already sixty-two years old, and [Chang] not knowing at what moment he would have another stroke of paralysis, which would, most certainly, prove fatal. They were excessively sensitive to the curious gaze of visitors, and we were compelled to bring all our feminine tact into play to enable us, at opportune moments, to cast furtive glances at them, and in this manner we obtained a satisfactory view of the monstrosities. Their tout ensemble was, to us, exceedingly repulsive: Monstrum horrendum informe. The Twins were clad in the rough garments of farmers, this apparel being composed entirely of homespun. After we had been at the house of the Twins about an hour, they brought, with the hospitality, which we flatter ourselves, had been acquired since their residence in the South, large glasses of cider which they had made for our refreshment. This we enjoyed vastly, not only because we liked the beverage, but because by this little display of appreciation we could still hold captive their good humor. When we handed our goblets to be refilled they smiled pleasantly, showing that our appreciation was heartily recognized. They spoke in English very broken, and it was only by listening auribus erectis that we could catch and intercept all that they said. They talked a great deal too, often making voluntary remarks and sometimes introducing new topics. Our time, which was limited, passed very quickly, and after remaining two hours, we rose to leave. At this movement, they insisted upon our remaining to tea, and when we informed them that we were compelled to decline this hospitable invitation, they importuned to us to remain longer; but even this we were forced to decline because of other engagements made in Mt. Airy. They escorted us to the carriage door, and again assuring us that they were "sorry we could not sup with them," bade us adieu.
Chang and Eng would give no more interviews. The year 1873 had almost passed into history. Except for a financial panic on Wall Street, it had been an uneventful year in the United States. Ulysses S. Grant had begun his second term in the White House. In small towns throughout the country, farmers were uniting into alliances. A school for nursing was founded at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. People were reading a bestseller, Around the World in Eighty Days, by a Frenchman named Jules Verne. The corrupt New York City politician William "Boss" Tweed was sentenced to twelve years in prison on 204 charges of fraud. The president of Cornell University refused to allow his football team to travel to Cleveland to play the University of Michigan, stating, "I will not permit 30 men to travel 400 miles to agitate a bag of wind." The winner of the first Preakness Stakes and the $1,800 purse was Survivor.
And now it was 1874.
A nineteen-year-old young man named Shepherd Monroe Dugger was visiting Mount Airy. Later, he remembered a meeting that occurred in January 1874: "The 12th day of January, Mr. Ed Banner, of Mt. Airy, whose five brothers were my neighbors at Banner Elk, N.C., took me to see the twins at Chang's house. They received me very courteously indeed . . ."
He was the last outsider to see the twins, and write about them, before the end.
~ * ~
Chang and Eng had just gone to Chang's house, to spend three days with Chang's wife Adelaide and Chang's children, when their neighbor Ed Banner and his young guest Shepherd Monroe Dugger came calling.
After their visitors had left that Monday night, Chang began coughing, "a dry cough with scanty, frothy sputum." Then he began to suffer chest pains. A member of the family was sent to Mount Airy to summon the family physician. The twins' regular physician, Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth, was not at home, but his brother and partner, Dr. William Hollingsworth, who sometimes attended the twins, responded at once.
Upon arriving at Chang's house Dr. Hollingsworth examined Chang and found that he was suffering an attack of bronchitis. He also found that Eng had been unaffected and was in the best of health. The doctor ordered the ailing brother to keep warm and stay indoors until he recovered.
During the two days following, Tuesday and Wednesday, Chang remained confined, while his brother deferred to his every wish because of the sudden illness and because they were in Chang's residence. By Wednesday, there was some improvement. The bronchitis had subsided, and Chang felt slightly better.
On Thursday, January 15, Chang's condition was stable. The arrival of evening signaled the time when they should move to Eng's house, since they had already spent three days in Chang's home. Now, as they had without fail for many years, they were expected to spend the next three days under Eng's roof.
Chang was ready to make the change, but Adelaide objected. She pointed out that he was still coughing, still suffering chest pains, and that he was simply too sick to travel. The doctor had cautioned him not to go outdoors. And outside, it was freezing, the coldest night of the winter. Eng concurred. He saw no reason to adhere to their routine practice. There could be, after all these years, an exception to the rule. Chang was too ill and the weather too chilling. He proposed they stay on at the Chang residence until Chang had fully recovered.
But Chang would not have it. He stubbornly persisted in his demand that they stand by their agreement—three days in his house, then three in Eng's. He was so adamant about it that, finally, Adelaide and Eng gave up trying to dissuade him.
Chang and Eng both dressed warmly, and then they went out to face the bitter cold. They climbed into their seats in the open carriage and settled down for the one-mile drive to Eng's house. It was over a road that "was very rough and frozen." The air was like ice and everywhere frost lay on the ground. Eng drove the horse hard as they bounced along. Chang huddled uncomfortably beside him.
When they reached Eng's house, Sallie had a hot supper waiting for them. Throughout the meal, Chang shivered, complaining that the short trip had chilled him and that he felt very cold. A roaring fire was going in the parlor fireplace, and Chang wanted to sit before it and warm himself. Eng, feeling well and with many things to do in his own home, did not want to sit in front of the fire. He "grumbled" about it, yet had no choice but to comply. The twins sat before the fireplace a long time, Chang refusing to leave but, at a late hour, he at last agreed to retire with Eng to their bed.
While Eng fell right off to sleep, Chang slept fitfully. When they awoke in the morning, Chang said that throughout the night "he had had such severe pain in the chest, and so much distress, that he thought he should have died."
It was Friday, January 16, and it was a long day for both the twins. Early in the day, an inquiry came by messenger from Adelaide asking how her husband was feeling. Chang sent word back to his wife that he was feeling better. But, in reality, as the day progressed he began to feel worse. Eng, now on his own ground, tried to perform some work indoors, but it was impossible. Chang hobbled along with him in obvious pain and in a foul temper.
Finally it was night. Sometime after supper, they both agreed to go to sleep. There was a small bedroom they used, frequently sharing it with one of Eng's younger children. But this night they were alone in the room. They seemed ready for sleep. The others in the household also went to bed.
Eng fell off to sleep, but Chang was restless. In a little while Chang was fully awake, rousing Eng beside him, groaning that he was finding it difficult to breathe. Together the twins left their bed and made their way to the porch outside the house, so that Chang could inhale the cold air. They drank some water while on the porch, went back indoors, and retired to their bed again.
Eng dozed off at once, but Chang could not.
Midnight came and went, and now it was Saturday, January 17. Shortly after midnight, Chang shook Eng awake. He wanted to get out of bed and start a fire in the parlor fireplace. Eng refused to budge. He said the bed was warmer than sitting up in a chilly room. He insisted that Chang lie back and try to go to sleep. Protesting, Chang obliged.
Their rest was brief. Soon Chang was up, shaking his brother by the shoulder, insisting he could not breathe lying down, that he had to get up. Eng had no choice but to rise and accompany his ailing brother out of bed. Together, they shuffled to the parlor fireplace, laid some fresh logs in the grate, and soon had a blaze going. Then they sank into their double-sized chair before the leaping flames. Eng smoked his clay pipe.
After a short interval, Eng began nodding off. Rousing himself, he insisted that they must go back to bed. Chang refused, saying "... it would kill me to lie down" and that it hurt his breast "to recline." They continued to sit in front of the fire. At one o'clock in the morning, Eng again asked Chang if they could go to bed. This time Chang agreed.
They made their way to the bedroom, got into the massive bed, and lay silently in the darkness. Soon Eng dropped off into a deep exhausted sleep.
There was no sound in the house for an hour or more, then several of the children heard a voice call out from the twins' bedroom. But no one answered it immediately.
At last, at four o'clock in the morning, one of Eng's sons, eighteen-year-old William, decided to look in on his father, and found him soundly asleep and breathing heavily. He went around the bed, turned up the lamp to study his Uncle Chang, and gasped. Chang was not breathing.
The lamp had awakened Eng. "William, I feel mighty sick," said Eng. Then he asked, "How is your Uncle Chang?"
"Uncle Chang is cold," William answered. "Uncle Chang is dead."
Immediately, reported the Philadelphia Times, Eng "in the greatest alarm turned and looked at the lifeless form beside him. He exclaimed, `Then I am going!' and was at once seized by violent nervous paroxysms."
The boy ran out of the bedroom to awaken the rest of the household and tell them that Uncle Chang had died. Quickly, Sallie sent one of the children racing off on the three-mile trip to Mount Airy to summon Dr. William Hollingsworth, no doubt realizing that her own husband was still alive and that the doctor's brother had promised that if one of the twins died he would quickly operate to sever the living twin in an effort to save him.
All members of the household had crowded into the terrible bedroom. Eng lay there, very much alive, and Sallie bent over him. Eng told her what he and Chang had done before and after midnight. Then Eng said to her, "I am very bad off." Actually, he was rational but terrified. "He complained of agonizing pain and distress, especially in his limbs," the Philadelphia Medical Times would report. "His surface was covered with a cold sweat. At his request his wife and children rubbed his legs and arms, and pulled and stretched them forcibly. This was steadily continued."
He wanted to defecate. He rubbed his arms. He half sat up, saying he was choking.
He then lay back again. He had not once mentioned his brother, but now he reached out and drew Chang closer to him.
He stared at those around him. "May the Lord have mercy upon my soul," he gasped.
Those were his last words. He lapsed into a comalike "stupor." It was an hour since Chang's death had been discovered.
Eng suffered no convulsions, no more visible agony. He continued to lie there in a stupor for an hour more. And then he died.
Shortly after, Dr. William Hollingsworth, carrying his surgical instruments, arrived. But there was no need for the surgical instruments.
It was over for the Siamese Twins.
Sixty-three years before, on a houseboat in a canal of a distant land, they had come into this world together, as one, and now, on a remote farm in North Carolina, in the dawn of a Saturday morning, on January 17, 1874, they departed this life together, as one.
~ * ~
There was no telegraph in Mount Airy, so the news was carried to Greensboro, North Carolina, where it went out over the wires to the rest of the United States, eventually to be relayed to Great Britain and Europe.
The New York Herald featured it as the front-page lead story.
The headlines read: THE DEAD SIAMESE TWINS. A LIGATURE THAT JOINED THEM IN LIFE AND DEATH.
In Mount Airy the weekend was busy, as were the days to follow, days filled with mourning, indecision, curiosity, speculation, and controversy.
On Saturday, in the hours after the twins' deaths, Adelaide had been informed, and with her children she hastened over to Eng's house. Dr. William Hollingsworth wanted to perform an autopsy on the twins' bodies, but this the wives would not permit.
Adelaide and Sallie next prepared their husbands' bodies so that friends and neighbors could come by to pay their last respects. The daughter of a neighbor recalled that her father as a youngster had visited Eng's house and seen the bodies. "He said he could still remember going with his mother in a buggy that night to see them. They were laid out on a trundle bed."
That Saturday night, inside Eng's house, there was a meeting. Adelaide and Sallie were conferring with Dr. Joe Hollingsworth, who had returned to town, and his brother William. The discussion concerned how the widows should dispose of their husbands' bodies. There had been some talk of a funeral the next day, Sunday, but the widows did not want a funeral until their entire families could be gathered together. Four of their sons were away from home, including the two oldest boys, Chang's Christopher, who had been working in Sacramento, California, and was now in San Francisco, and Eng's Stephen, who was also in a Western city. The sons had to be notified and told to return home before there could be a funeral. The Drs. Hollingsworth, however, had another concern. After Chang and Eng, were buried there would surely be vandals or graverobbers who would attempt to steal the corpses and sell them to promoters for public exhibition. Since the burial site could not be protected forever, this horrendous act was bound to occur sooner or later. The Drs. Hollingsworth made what they regarded as a sensible suggestion. Let Adelaide and Sallie circumvent the possibility of theft by themselves legiti-mately selling their husbands' corpses for exhibition. In this way, they could at least profit by the act and gain some security.
Both appalled and confused by what their advisers had to say, Adelaide and Sallie decided that they would prefer to let the se-nior son in both families, Christopher, help them make the deci-sion when he arrived home. The Drs. Hollingsworth agreed this was wise. Meanwhile, the physicians pointed out, the bodies had to be preserved and temporarily buried in a place that could be protected. They had no means of embalming the bodies, so the four of them determined that the corpses would be hermetically sealed in a walnut casket, which would be placed in a tin coffin, which in turn would be enclosed in a wooden box. This triple coffin would be kept in the cellar of Eng's house, where it could be guarded until final disposition of the bodies was made.
Immediately after the meeting ended Saturday evening, a local tinsmith, William Augustus Reich, was told to make a tin coffin large enough to hold the twins' casket.
Meanwhile, a rumor was spreading through Surry County that the funeral would be held on Sunday and that the public would be able to view the bodies. When Sunday came, a large crowd of people, including some clergymen, assembled outside Eng's house to see Chang and Eng and then attend the funeral. The door to the house was opened, and the crowd poured inside. There, after filing past the bodies, they were informed that there would be no funeral for the time being, that the funeral had been postponed. This announcement succeeded in dispersing the crowd.
During the height of the crush, William Augustus Reich deliv-ered the tin coffin. The next morning, Monday, January 19, he wrote a letter to his sister:
Dear Darling
I write you a few lines this morning. I expect you heard the Siamese Twins are dead. I got an order late Saturday evening for a large tin coffin. I made it. I worked nearly all night, finished it about noon yesterday. Cut out yesterday afternoon & soldered them up. It was a sight the people that was there. It was a long time before I could get my foot in at the door, so crowded. It was like a camp meeting so many people horses and carriages. It was most night before I got through soldering them up. They are not going to bury them but keep them in the house. I expect they are afraid somebody would steal them. The Siamese Twins is the greatest human curiosity in the world & who ever thought I would be the man to solder them up. I had to cut into 34 big sheets of tin to make the coffin. I have a notion to charge $2o do you think that would be about right? Their death was sudden & unexpected—on Friday night late yet they were unusually cheerful & went to bed all right. A little before day on Saturday morning Eng found his brother dead. He called for the family to get up, said he felt himself failing complaining of pains in his limbs & died about two hours after the other one. Chang the smallest one that died first had something like palsy about a year ago & I believe he got it again & died with it & as soon as he was dead the disease passed right into the other one. All the doctors went out Saturday morning prepared to cut them apart, but they were both dead when they got there. I heard somebody say that Chang had always been accustomed to liquor, but had not used any for a few days & perhaps caused a reaction. They had intended going out showing shortly had they lived. I wrote a letter to Edward Blum & he will probably put something in the paper about it. They were both real business men & had large families. . . . The Siamese twins were nicely dressed in black with slippers on I helped lift them in their coffin it was a strange sight. I must close with our best love I remain
Affectionately xxx
AUGUSTUS
It was a sight to see the people that came to my house to see me make the coffin. It was the greatest job I ever done. . . . I send you a drop of solder that dropped on the coffin as I was soldering them up yesterday.
On Monday, the very day that the tinsmith was writing his letter, Chang's daughter Nannie—aged twenty-six, seriously ill with the tuberculosis she had contracted from Eng's Katherine was writing a more crucial and urgent letter to her older brother Christopher in San Francisco:
Dear Brother Cris
It is with deepest sorrow I write the sad news of poor papa's & Uncles death. They died on Saturday Morning the (17th) inst. Papa about a quarter before 5, o'clock & Uncle about 2 & a half hours after.
Papa took deep cold and it settled on his lungs eight days before he died. Dr. Bill told him he must stay in the house & take care of himself or he would have pneumonia he coughed awfully & could not lie down much. On thursday evening it was bitter cold & the Dr. was here & told them to remain here, but they would go, and that night he was very low, next day he coughed and was in much distress about his lungs seemed to breathe with great difficulty. They went to bed late friday night & rested a little—then they got up a while & set by the fire afterwards they lay down again & tried to rest between four & five—papa commenced coughing & congestion of the lungs come on & he died immediately, he called William but before he could get there and turn up the lamp he was gone. Uncle had been as well as usual all this time but when William lighted the lamp Uncle said William I feel mighty sick he—uncle did not know papa was dead—from that moment he seemed to suffer the most intense pain, calling on them to rub & pull his arms until life was extinct.
And now Cris comes the hardest the most awful part to be told — We dare not bury their bodies—but have put them in a tin coffin lined with wood & a wooden case outside and will today put them in the cellar at Uncles house until you, De Pat & Mont comes home—and then we fear they will not be safe. Dr. Joe says their bodies would not remain in the grave three nights if they were put there, that the best friends we have can be bought. (some we may think our friends may not be so) And he & Dr. Bill both said for one or two thousand Dollars almost any one would make an effort to secure their bodies. And for us to do this thing until the grown boys could get home. Cris will you come—do please All wish it — And I feel sure you will never get your property until you do come and besides, there is no one capable of managing the affairs here and times here will be awful until you do come for we fear that some one will go to Uncles house & do mischief — There is the most awful excitement in the Country that has ever been known—Dr. Joe says he has never known the like & that we may watch. On sunday they thought they would be buried and a Crowd such as has not met for any purpose lately met there and they could not clear the rooms sufficiently for the family's to go in and see them until they told them they would not be buried. Dr. Joe and Dr. Bill told Mary that there is no doubt but what a reward for the bodies has already been put out (secretly) & for us to try to watch & keep them until you and the boys from Uncles can come home. They say we never can keep them that some one will steal them from us. I could not tell you all they advise it would take too long besides I don't know that my letter will go to you. The excitement is certainly awful and Dr. Joe says the farther it goes the greater it gets. he leaves home for the North this Morning and he says he will write to us and advise us what to do to the best of his ability — Not that he expects to profit by it but, as a friend to both families — Now I will tell you what he says — In the first place if we could bury our dead, conscious that they would rest as we placed them, it would be just and proper, but we cannot do this, some paid demon would drag them from their resting place in less than three nights And when once gone we could not help ourselves, that they would make Merchandise of the bodies in spite of all we can do, or could do. In the next place he said—as it is entirely and wholely impossible for us to keep & guard them always; it would be no disgrace, show no low principle for the two families to accept any profits from their bodies they could—that some one would receive something — Why not their families and not strangers? Cris this looks & seems awful to me but the Drs. put it in such force to our reason & our minds that we do not know what to do about it; We await your arrival for we feel sure you will come, and they will try to guard and keep them safe until you can come which we hope will not be many weeks. Besides all this, R. S. Gilmer says from the nature & manner of papa's will we are not sure of this home of ours, that this Mrs. Doty in New York also has a will by which she may be able to turn us all out of the house & home and Mama is troubled about that. She is anxious that you should come home and wind up the affairs. Drs. Joe & Billy & Mr. R. S. Gilmer said you could do better than any one else.
Mary received your letter from San Francisco she will write you in a few days ... Cris come if you can & as soon as you can, & write to us if you are or are not coming. We may Telegraph to you.
Yours as Ever N.A.B.
As Nannie had informed her brother, the tin coffin holding the
bodies of the twins was buried in the cellar of Eng's house later that Monday. The coffin was carried downstairs into the cold basement, lowered into a shallow grave, and entirely covered on the top and sides with powdered charcoal two feet deep.
The warnings by the Drs. Hollingsworth that someone might try to steal the corpses to put them on exhibition were probably not unwarranted. Offers from Eastern entrepreneurs to purchase the bodies of Chang and Eng were soon coming in to Adelaide and Sallie. One of them, from Brooklyn, New York, dated January 29, 1874, read:
Mrs. Kang & Ang,
We wish to negotiate with you about the Bodys of the twins. it is a Crase subject but we wish you to answer by Return Mail the lowest price Cash. Confidential on our part. You will oblige us Very Much.
Name your price. we would not think of proposing the subject but we think it will be for the Benefit for the Country as others may be so unfortunate.
We Remain Respectfully Yours
ROZELL HORTON.
There was much gossip in Mount Airy about the possibility that the Bunker widows might sell the bodies of their husbands for profit, and a correspondent of the New York Herald on his way to Mount Airy quickly learned of it and filed a story:
THE BODIES OF THE SIAMESE TWINS
AT THE DISPOSAL OF THE HIGHEST BIDDER
What the proposed final disposition of the bodies of the Siamese Twins is to be I am not informed, but report here says that they are to be embalmed and disposed of at an enormous price to some museum or medical college, or placed on exhibition at a sum equivalent to the value set upon them by the Mount Airy managers, who, of course, will realize a handsome percentage out of the transaction. All of this, however, is to be subject to the decision of the members of the families, who have been notified of the death of their parents, and are expected home at an early day.
No effort whatever was made to perform an operation on the
ligament with regard to ascertaining whether there was an artery
passing through it or not, as that would have materially interfered with prospective greenbacks, and present speculation would have been nipped in the bud. Embalmed and preserved as they are, the bodies of the twins will have a market value from which money can always be realized by those haying pos-session of them. The ligament cut in the interest of science, the curiosity would be destroyed and consequently the separate dead bodies would be of no value.
While the selling of the bodies of her father and uncle contin-ued to agitate Nannie Bunker, there was another matter referred to in her letter to her brother that also troubled her. Although a family friend, Robert Gilmer, had just read the last wills left be-hind by Chang and Eng, he had cautioned Nannie that there existed an earlier will in which Chang had given the bulk of his estate to a love of long ago, Catherine M. Bunker, now Mrs. Doty. The apprehensions of Nannie, and the other members of the twins' families, about this previous will proved to be ground-less. Mrs. Doty never sought her outdated inheritance. The most recent wills in Gilmer's possession were the ones recognized and acted upon. Curiously, although both twins had had to be present at the signing of Eng's will in 1868, Chang did not sign his final will until 1871.
Eng's will, signed over five years before his death, read:
I Eng Bunker of the county of Surry and state of North Caro-lina being of sound mind and memory and knowing the uncer-tainty of all human events especially life do make and declare this to be my last will and testament to wit as follows.
First I do by this my last will and testament constitute and appoint my beloved wife Sally Ann Bunker my due and lawful executor who after paying all the necessary expenses of a decent burial for myself shall pay all my just and lawful debts out of my personal estate.
Item. I bequeath and devise to my wife Sally Ann Bunker on account of the love and tender affections I have for her all my lands to have, hold and enjoy during her natural life and should my beloved wife Sallie Ann Bunker die before my minor chil-dren become of age then it is my desire that the lands remain unsold in order that my minor children may enjoy the rents and profits of my lands and may have a house during their infancy and after the death of my wife and after my infant children shall come to age then the said lands may be equally divided among all my children.
Item. I will, bequeath and devise all my household and kitchen furniture and horses, cows, pigs and all cattle of whatsoever kind that is now on the farm. Also all farming utensils to my wife during her life and after her death should she die before my infant children come of age, it is my desire that the above named personal property remains for the benefit of my infant children and none of the above mentioned property be sold until after the death of my wife and until the minor children shall become of age.
Item. I will and bequeath all of my money that may be on hand or due the estate at my death to be divided among my children equally and it is further my desire that after the death of my wife and after my minor children shall become of age that all my property both real and personal be equally divided among all my children.
In testimony whereof I have here unto set my hand and seal this 27th day of November A.D. 1868.
ENG BUNKER
Chang's will, signed May 15, 1871, two years and eight months before his death, was similar to his brother's will. Chang left all his lands to his wife, or if she died before their children had come of age, then the lands were to be held to support his offspring and later divided among them. However, Chang's will differed from Eng's in one respect. He had made a special provision for two of his children:
"I will and bequeath that after my death all my personal property of whatsoever kind and descript shall be divided equally among all children and wife—except my two dumb children Louisa E. Bunker and Jesse L. Bunker who shall have five hundred dollars each more than any of the rest of my children on account of their affliction . . ."
In the days following the death of Chang and Eng, the frenzy of excitement generated by their demise persisted throughout Surry County, the state of North Carolina, and most parts of the United States. The same questions were being asked by everyone: What would happen to the bodies of Chang and Eng? What were the actual causes of their deaths? What did the famous ligament that bound them together really consist of?
The speculative answers to these questions were reflected in a front-page story in the New York Herald, written from Mount Airy and telegraphed from Greensboro on January 24, 1874, by a Manhattan reporter assigned to visit the scene and deliver a firsthand picture of what was going on. The Herald reporter arrived in Surry County five days after the twins had died. He began his interviews and investigations at once. The newspaper gave his long and detailed story a sensational play by headlining it in boldface type:
THE SIAMESE TWINS
A Herald Man at the Hyphenated Brethren's Home
THE DEATHS OF CHANG AND ENG
What Was the Cause of Death, Sympathy
or Shock?
AND I MUST DIE TOO!"
Was There an Essentially Vital Union Through the
Ligament?
HOW THE BODIES LOOKED
The Siamese twins had so long become a part and parcel of this community, and of whom it evinced no small pride, as the twins, like any other natural curiosity, gave it notoriety, brought visitors and tourists to its hotels, added dignity to its standing as a town and gave eclat to its society, that their totally unexpected deaths, on Saturday last, the 77th inst., produced a gloom from which the people here have scarcely yet recovered. Upon the arrival of the HERALD representative here yesterday this feeling of regret was markedly observable in the tone and manner in which every one, even the negroes, spoke of the dead twins. For twenty-seven years they had been residents of the county, were familiar and intimate with nearly every citizen in it, were universally beloved and respected, and, owing to their well known hospitality and liberal spirit, their loss is just now as universally regretted.
As he had neared his destination by buggy, the Herald reporter wrote, a fog had begun to descend. Out of the fog there materialized a man on horseback, dressed in gray. As the rider drew closer, the reporter stopped him.
"How far is it to Mount Airy?" the reporter asked.
"About five miles," the rider answered.
"Do you know if Dr. Hollingsworth is at home?"
"That is my name, sir. But there are two Dr. Hollingsworths; which of them do you want to see?"
"I want to see the one who attended the Siamese twins when they were living," the reporter said.
"Then I am the one. My brother, Dr. Joe Hollingsworth, who also assisted me, went North yesterday. My name is William Hollingsworth."
"How soon will you be back in town?" the reporter asked. "Not till midnight," said Dr. Hollingsworth.
This information dismayed the reporter, since he had planned to leave Mount Airy at six o'clock the next morning in order to reach the Greensboro telegraph station by the following day. The reporter realized that his only opportunity to interview Dr. Hollingsworth might be right this minute on the road. Immediately, from his seat on the buggy, the reporter began to ask his questions, while the physician on horseback answered them. The reporter later wrote:
Dr. Hollingsworth then explained that Chang had an attack of paralysis shortly after returning from Europe last year, that he had been suffering from pneumonia, or severe lung cold, for the past month and that he (the Doctor) believed that it was exposure before he had sufficiently recovered from this malady that precipitated his death. On Friday Eng was as well as usual—Chang not apparently very much worse. Eng was in excellent spirits and seemed remarkably cheerful and sprightly. Chang, on the other hand, from the debility caused by his paralysis and cold, together with a certain stupidity resulting from the use of too much stimulant, was fretful, sullen and snappish when spoken to, which of late was his accustomed conduct. All the family retired at the usual hour. Eng's wife and children slept up stairs; the Twins slept down stairs. It was five o'clock in the morning when one of Eng's sons heard, as he thought, a call from his Uncle Chang. Responding as quickly as possible, he came down stairs and going to the side of the bed upon which his Uncle Chang lay found him lying, apparently in a deep sleep, but was startled by the ghastly and singular appearance of the features, which wore an expression of pain, if not agony, and were much darker than he had ever seen them before.
After a closer examination the boy discovered his uncle was dead, and uttering an oft-repeated cry of "Uncle Chang is dead!" alarmed the whole household, all of whom speedily came pouring into the room in their night dresses.
While the boy still believes it was his uncle's voice that called everybody else feels convinced that it must have been Eng, his father.
The tumult caused by the death of Chang, the hurry and noise in sending for the doctor and for Chang's wife and children, must have so terribly shocked Eng that his nervous system became completely prostrated, and he never uttered a word except the single expression heretofore reported in the HERALD-"And I must die, too."
It was two hours after Chang died, said Dr. Hollingsworth, that he had arrived on the scene, only to find Eng dead as well.
"How long do you think Eng had been dead when you arrived?" the reporter asked.
"Not more than ten or fifteen minutes."
"Do you think his death was caused by any vital connection or artery passing from one to the other through the ligament that united them?"
Dr. Hollingsworth's answer was firm. "I am confident that Eng's death was produced by no such cause."
"Do you not believe the existence of some such vital connection through the ligament?" the reporter persisted.
"I do not, because I have attended them when one was sick and the other was in good health, and when there was as much as twenty beats difference to the minute in their pulsation."
"What, then, in your opinion, caused Eng's death?"
"The great shock and terror inspired by such a union with death," said Dr. Hollingsworth, "added to which was the belief which prevailed between them that when one died the other would. These combined to destroy his mental faculties and paralyze his physical energies, and he succumbed to the dread visitation."
"You do not think, then, that if the ligament had been severed his life would have been saved?"
"I do not," said the physician. "I rather think that any operation, unless performed immediately upon his discovery of Chang's death, would have hastened Eng's death."
"What appearance did they present at first after death?" the reporter inquired.
"Chang was a little discolored, but not much. Eng looked as natural as if he was asleep. In fact I thought he was sleeping until I ascertained that he was actually dead."
"Is their appearance much altered since?"
"Not materially," said Dr. Hollingsworth, impatient to leave. "Have they been interred?"
"Well, only temporarily." Dr. Hollingsworth indicated he had to be on his way. "Good evening, sir," he said, and with that he rode off.
When the Herald reporter reached Mount Airy and learned that the Bunkers' residences were some miles out of town, he realized it was too late to attempt to interview the widows or children. Instead, he made inquiries about Chang and Eng's friends, and was finally directed to a close friend of the twins named Isaac Armfield, who had been at Eng's to help Sallie and Adelaide the day after the twins died. Isaac Armfield proved ready to cooperate with a visiting journalist.
The reporter, dissatisfied with Dr. Hollingsworth's opinion as to the cause of Eng's death, now decided to bring up the subject again. "Mr. Armfield, is it not your opinion that Eng died from the shock or fright occasioned by his brother's death?"
"No, sir, it is not," said Armfield with certainty. He had his own view of Eng's death, and now he voiced it fully. "I am as well satisfied that blood flowed from one to the other through that connecting ligament as that the same blood flows in my right and left arm."
"Then you think it was the death of Chang that precipitated the death of Eng?"
"Yes, sir. After Chang's death, the blood from Eng's body flowed into his, but there being no responsive vitality it would not flow back, so that Eng died from exhaustion and loss of blood, and not from any shock or fright."
"Why, then, does the Doctor persist in saying that it was from a shock or fright that Eng died?" the reporter wondered.
"I don't know," said Armfield, "but I heard Dr. Bill Hollingsworth say that he would rather have the bodies of the dead twins than the whole of Surry county."
"What appearance did the twins present after their death?"
"Chang was nearly black in the face and looked as if he had died in a fit or in great agony. Eng looked as if he had been asleep."
"Do you know whether Eng made any expression of pain before he died?"
"Yes," said Armfield. "I inquired particularly about that, and found that he called repeatedly to those around him to rub and pull his arms and legs, that he was cramped—a sure indication of loss of blood or that the circulation was impeded from some cause, and this confirms me in the opinion that the death of Chang superinduced that of Eng."
Satisfied with Isaac Armfield's theory about Eng's death, the Herald reporter decided to call it a night and get some sleep. But the next morning he was up early, determined to confront Dr. Hollingsworth once more, this time in the physician's office. Realizing that in their talk on the road, he had failed to identify himself as a journalist from New York, the reporter did so now as he sat down with the doctor. This information had an immediate inhibiting effect on the physician. As the reporter wrote later, "I found him more guarded in his expressions and very reticent in giving opinions."
Instead of leaving for Greensboro that morning to file his story as soon as possible, the reporter decided to stay on in Mount Airy and try to learn more about the activities that had occurred following the twins' deaths. Tramping around town, interviewing everyone and anyone who had known the twins, the reporter finally had the remaining information that he needed:
The living twins were quite a source of profit to several of the prominent men in Mount Airy, and why not now turn the dead bodies to some account in the shape of greenbacks? Thus it was that on Saturday, the day on which the twins died, a consultation was held by these gentlemen, who had been connected in various capacities with the families of the deceased, at which it was decided that it would be unwise, injudicious and impolitic to bury the twins at the present time, for various and sundry considerations. This much, and more, perhaps, agreed upon, the wives of the twins were taken into the conference, and they were soon won over to the plausible and prospectively profitable propositions of the Mount Airy friends of the family.
On the following day (Sunday) a large crowd of sympathizing friends and acquaintances of the twins' families assembled at the residence of Eng, where the dead were laid out, in the anticipation of attending the funeral. A clergyman also put in an appearance to perform the last sad rites of Christianity over the bodies of the respected deceased. Contrary to the general expectation, however, no funeral took place, the assembled multitude being informed that it was postponed in deference to the wishes of the members of the families who were at home. Several of the sons of Chang are absent, and some of the daughters of both, and it was given out that they were to be consulted before a final disposition of the bodies would be agreed upon. In the meantime something had to be done with the bodies, and, with a celerity that was remarkable, all the utensils of temporary interment were forthcoming. . . .
Here, in a civilized land, were two mysterious deaths, and yet no inquest was held. I asked again and again why the Coroner had not been notified and why a post-mortem examination had not been held, and the general reply was that nobody considered it necessary, as the doctor had satisfactorily explained to the public and the families of the deceased the cause of the deaths. Thus the matter rests in mystery, in order to afford interested parties an opportunity to either sell or otherwise dispose of the bodies.
During their lifetime the twins belonged to no religious de-nomination and rarely attended divine service, nor was there any clergyman sufficiently intimate with them to have any knowledge of their religious views. One of their wives is a mem-ber of the Baptist Church, the other of the Society of Friends, the children being nearly all Baptists. One of the daughters of Chang, I was told, was highly incensed at the boxing up process performed on the dead body of her parent and uncle and the denial of Christian burial to them, and several of the junior members of the family were vehement in their expressions of indignation at the disgraceful course pursued by their Mount Airy friends and their own mothers.
On the very same day the Herald reporter had sent his detailed story to New York from Greensboro, he came across a second story about the Siamese Twins. It gave some clue as to what was going on behind the scenes in the disposition of the twins' bodies. The reporter filed that story, too:
Upon my arrival here this evening from Mount Airy I was informed, on the most authentic authority, that Dr. Joe Hollingsworth, while enroute for the North, stated here that his mission there was to dispose of the dead bodies of the twins on the most favorable terms he could negotiate. This accounts for the veil of mystery which has been thrown over the deaths of the twins and furnishes the clew to the object in suppressing the real cause of the death of Eng, by attributing it to the shock or fright occasioned by Chang's death.
The sum asked for the privilege of a post-mortem is stated to be $8,000 or $10,000.
The rumor that the Bunker widows were actually bargaining to sell off the corpses of their husbands to the highest bidder was widely accepted for many weeks. As far away as London, The Lancet was stating that while the widows were against an autopsy, they were ready to sell their husbands' bodies for $8,000 to$10,000 to competing medical men or showmen for the purposes of autopsy or exhibition. All of this was later proved completely untrue.
What was true was that a group of eminent surgeons in Philadelphia, in the interests of science, had approached Adelaide and Sallie Bunker in an effort to persuade them to permit an autopsy. An exchange of money in return for a postmortem was never suggested by the physicians and never demanded by the widows.
This effort to examine the bodies all began with one man—Dr. William H. Pancoast, son of a renowned surgeon and himself a professor of general, descriptive, and surgical anatomy at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.
On learning of the twins' death, as Dr. Pancoast later recalled, his interest as well as that of his colleagues was "excited . . . as to what might be the nature of this connecting band" and he held "a hope that a post-mortem examination would be made to investigate its structure, so as to decide whether or not they could have been safely separated. It was held to be a duty to science and humanity, that the family of the deceased should permit an autopsy."
Moreover, Dr. Pancoast felt that Chang and Eng owed some-thing to the medical profession worldwide, and their families should be aware of this. Dr. Pancoast believed that for years the twins had used the leading physicians in America, England, and Europe to obtain free examinations and advice (mainly for publicity purposes, Dr. Pancoast cynically contended), and now it was time that the world of medicine should be paid back.
The fact that the precious bodies had not been embalmed appalled Dr. Pancoast, and perhaps this more than anything else provoked him to act.
"In conversation with some of my present colleagues of the faculty of the Jefferson Medical College," he said, "it was thought advisable to make inquiry at Mount Airy, the home of the twins, distant about 400 miles. . . . I telegraphed to the Mayor of Greensborough (that city being the nearest point of telegraphic connection to Mount Airy), by the aid and through the courtesy of Mr. Wm. S. Stokley, Mayor of this city, and General Henry H. Bingham. I inquired if a post-mortem examination had been made, and, if not, if one would be permitted; offering the use of the anatomical rooms of the Jefferson Medical College for that purpose, and my own services in making an autopsy. Should the family not permit the bodies to be removed, I volunteered to go to Mount Airy to make the examination."
When the mayor of Greensboro received Dr. Pancoast's telegram—actually signed by Mayor Stokley of Philadelphia—he felt that he could do nothing to help. He wired back that he had "neither knowledge nor power in the matter." Immediately after this, Dr. Joe Hollingsworth arrived in Greensboro on his way North. Somebody, knowing that Dr. Hollingsworth had been the twins' physician, arranged for him to see the telegram signed by Mayor Stokley on Dr. Pancoast's behalf. At once, Dr. Hollingsworth decided to detour to Philadelphia. He addressed a telegram to Mayor Stokley: "Inform Dr. Pancoast that I shall be in Philadelphia to-morrow night at the American Hotel. I attended the Siamese Twins."
In Philadelphia, word of Dr. Hollingsworth's visit quickly leaked to the newspapers. The Philadelphia Press ran the following on January 22, 1874:
Dr. Joseph Hollinsworth, of Mount Airy, North Carolina, at one time family physician to the Siamese twins, has arrived in this city. His object in coming here is to consult with Dr. Wm. H. Pancoast, demonstrator of anatomy, Jefferson Medical College, relative to a post mortem examination of the bodies of the twins. Dr. Hollinsworth over two years ago attended the twins, but since that time has given them no medical advice. They lived in an out of the way place, and he was not present when either died. His brother, also a physician, was there after Eng died... .
Dr. Hollinsworth saw the family soon after the death of the twins. He says the wives are not willing for a post mortem examination. — They want first to consult the children, who live in various portions of the State. The bodies are now buried beneath their house, but are in a state of preservation. They are being guarded by the family ...
While inaccurate in its spelling of Hollingsworth's name and about his relationship with the twins, the account was correct in one respect. Dr. Hollingsworth had indeed arrived in Philadelphia and was ready to meet Dr. Pancoast on this Friday evening.
Later in the evening Dr. Hollingsworth called upon Dr. Pan-coast at his house at iith and Walnut Streets. Also attending the initial meeting was Professor S. D. Gross, Pancoast's superior on the faculty.
There are two versions of what occurred in that meeting. Although the twins' families always insisted they had never wanted money for the bodies, one Philadelphia newspaper stated that Dr. Hollingsworth had asked Dr. Pancoast and Dr. Gross for $10,000. According to this account:
"Your correspondent waited upon the doctor this evening at the American Hotel, and was informed by that gentleman (Dr. Hollingsworth) that the proposition had been made to the faculty, but they, considering the figure too large, were negotiating with the faculty of a New York college relative to a joint contribution to a sum necessary for the purchase.... The doctor also said that as the families of the twins were averse to any mutilation of the bodies, he thought that they could hardly be induced to allow the remains to be embalmed.... Since the families are not in affluent circumstances they might conclude to allow a large pecuniary consideration to alter their present decision."
Writing of this same meeting, the authoritative Philadelphia Medical Times said simply that "a letter was written to the wives of the twins, proposing that Dr. Pancoast should come on to embalm and examine the bodies."
The letter to Adelaide and Sallie was written by Dr. Joe Hollingsworth, and sent to his brother with a request that Dr. Bill deliver it to the widows and discuss it with them. While they awaited a reply, several more meetings were held, with other members of the College of Physicians in attendance. It was agreed that if the widows gave their consent, an informal commission consisting of Dr. Pancoast, Dr. Harrison Allen, a professor of comparative anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Thomas H. Andrews, on the staff of Jefferson Medical College, would visit Mount Airy. So eager were the doctors to make the trip that they were prepared to pay their own expenses.
Now began a period of waiting for a decision from Adelaide and Sallie. On January 26, a Philadelphia newspaper reported:
"The letter that was expected from Dr. Wm. Hollingsworth of Mount Airy, N.C., has not been received, but Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth and Joseph [sic] Paricoast of Jefferson Medical College expect it to arrive in a day or so. The entire particulars as to the designs of the twins' families relative to Chang and Eng's bodies will at that time be known. Telegrams and letters are reaching Dr. Pancoast from all parts of the country from leading scientists asking for new facts about the autopsy, some of them stating that they will give financial assistance if necessary to carry the examination through successfully."
Almost a week passed before the matter was resolved. Apparently, in Mount Airy, Dr. William Hollingsworth's influence on Adelaide and Sallie was sufficient to carry the day.
The commission was invited to come to Mount Airy.
On Thursday night, January 29, the commission parted company with Dr. Joe Hollingsworth, who promised them that his brother would meet them in Mount Airy. He himself continued his journey north.
The Philadelphia Medical Times shortly after reported on the events that happened next:
The Commission arrived at Mt. Airy on the evening of Saturday, January 31, and proceeded to the residence of Eng the following morning, in company with a photographer and Dr. William Hollingsworth, who is the family physician in the absence of Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth. The widows of the twins received the Commission hospitably, and a conference was at once entered into, at which the "Mistresses" Bunker, the Commission, Dr. Hollingsworth, and the widows' legal adviser [Robert S. Gilmer] were present. It was then agreed that, under consideration of embalming the bodies of the twins, permission would be granted to exhume and examine the structures distinguishing them, provided that no incisions should be made which would impair the external surface of the band. Subsequently it was agreed that limited incisions would be allowed on the posterior surface of the band.
The commission members quickly saw that the conditions in Eng's house were not conducive to a thorough autopsy. They pleaded with Adelaide and Sallie to permit them, after embalming was completed, to send the bodies to Philadelphia, where Dr. Pancoast could perform the autopsy under optimum conditions in the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians. Adelaide and Sallie were finally convinced.
"We succeeded in inducing the family to trust us with the bodies," said Dr. Pancoast, "under a written agreement which engaged Dr. Allen and myself to return them to such agent or agents as the family should select. This gave us permission to make such post-mortem examination as would not disfigure the cadavers, and to examine the strange band that united them, on what was called its posterior part, but in no way to deface it in front, nor to divide it asunder."
The Philadelphia Medical Times elaborated further on the agreement and what followed in Eng's house:
An agreement in writing was then drawn up, expressing the above restrictions, but extending authority to the Commission to remove the bodies to Philadelphia, provided that they be kept there in a fire-proof building, and held subject to the commands of the families when informed of the completion of the embalming process.
The object of the visit of the Commission, having been noised about the country, had attracted a crowd of curious people, who were willing enough to give the necessary aid in exhuming the bodies. . . . The bodies were buried in the cellar of Eng's house, in a shallow grave, which had been covered with tumulus of powdered charcoal. This being removed revealed several planks covering an outer wooden box, which, in turn, enclosed a tin encasement to the coffin. After unsoldering the tin box, the coffin was carried to the second floor of the house, to a large chamber. The lid was unscrewed, and the object of the search of the Commission was exposed to view. It was certainly an anxious moment. Fifteen days had elapsed since death, and no preservative had been employed. It was an agreeable surprise, therefore, that no odor of decomposition escaped into the room, and that the features gave no evidence of impending de-cay. On the contrary, the face of Eng was that of one sleeping; and the only unfavorable appearance in Chang was a slight lividity of the lips and a purplish discoloration about the ears. The widows at this point entered the room, and, amid the respectful silence of all present, took a last look at the remains.
Once Dr. Pancoast and his colleagues were alone again, they went efficiently about their business. Chang and Eng were stripped of their clothing and their bodies propped to standing position, while the photographer took full-length pictures of their naked bodies and close-ups of the connecting ligament. Since the day was overcast and the light from outdoors poor, the picture-taking process went on for some time. During this, Dr. Andrews jotted notes, some typical ones reading:
"Examination made Sunday, February 1, 1874, fifteen days and eight hours after the death of Chang.
"The bodies were found in the coffin in a good state of preservation: there was a slight cadaveric odor about Chang . . .
"The fingers of [Chang's] right hand—the paralyzed side—were forcibly flexed, although rigor mortis was absent . . .
"In both subjects the hair of the head was gray.
"On the pubis of each subject the hair of the left side was gray, that of the right side, black."
With the photography done, the moment had come to start embalming the bodies. Dr. Pancoast made lengthy incisions in the body of each twin, starting at the outer side of the median line of the abdomen.
"We first injected the bodies with a solution of chloride of zinc, which I took with me, of the ordinary strength that I have been in the habit of using for the preservation of subjects for dissection," recalled Dr. Pancoast. "We opened the right primitive iliac artery of Eng, and the left one of Chang, injecting the antiseptic fluid upwards and downwards, as the bodies lay before us in their natural or customary recumbent position."
After the embalming process was finished, Dr. Pancoast continued his incisions "upward and inward towards the band." Superficial examination of the connecting band showed that it was too complex in structure to be studied further in these nonmedical surroundings. The physicians unanimously agreed that they had gone as far as they could go in Eng's house, and that their autopsy would have to be resumed in Philadelphia.
The incisions in each body were carefully sewed up. The bodies of Chang and Eng were once more clothed in their black suits and slippers and lifted back into their walnut casket. After reassur-ing Adelaide and Sallie, and saying farewell to them, the mem-bers of the commission had the coffin loaded onto a wagon, and then they followed it to Mount Airy. There, the coffin was placed in the tin box again, and the lid was carefully resoldered.
The doubly enclosed bodies were driven to Salem, North Caro-lina, and from there were shipped by express to the Miitter Museum of the College of Physicians in Philadelphia. Drs. Pancoast, Allen, and Andrews then started for Philadelphia themselves, re-turning to the city on February 5, a week after they had left it.
Three days later, the bodies of Chang and Eng were delivered to the Mutter Museum, where they were locked up and kept under guard. That evening a meeting of the College of Physicians was called. The commission members were heartily congratulated, the expenses for their trip reimbursed, and an appropriation of $35o was voted to pay for the photographs and plaster casts of the twins which would be kept by the museum.
On Tuesday, February lo, the bodies of Chang and Eng were once more removed from their casket, disrobed, and placed on operating tables. Dr. William Pancoast directed the official autopsy. This surgery, it was hoped, would reveal to a waiting world the nature of the ligament that had joined the twins for sixty-three years, would disclose the chances they might have had to survive separation, and would provide better understanding of their lives and deaths.
Eight days later, on Wednesday, February 18, in the Hall of the College of Physicians, the leading surgeons and medical professors gathered to hear reports of the autopsy from Dr. William Pancoast and Dr. Harrison Allen. The only reporter permitted inside was a representative of the Philadelphia Medical Times.
Dr. Pancoast led off. When he had given his report, Dr. Allen gave a more minute anatomical description, demonstrating his points by touching the bodies laid out before him. After they spoke, the audience was allowed to examine the bodies for themselves.
As to the actual composition of the band, and the much disputed question whether the twins' livers intruded into it, Dr. Pancoast had this to say:
The livers we have found to approximate each other and to push through the respective peritoneal openings into the band. We extended our incisions to the margin of the band in front. By placing my hand in the peritoneal cavity of Eng and my colleague placing his hand in the peritoneal cavity of Chang, we pushed before us processes of peritoneum, which ran on to the median line of the band; and we could feel our fingers in the lower portion of the band, behind the median line, with a distinct layer of peritoneum between them, demonstrating at once the prolongation of the peritoneum into the band, and the complete separation of one peritoneal cavity from the other at this median line.
. . . the surgical anatomy of the band consists in the skin and fascia which cover it, the two separate peritoneal pouches which meet in the middle, the large peritoneal pouch, the vascular connection, to whatever extent they may exist between the two portal circulations, and the remains of the hypogastric arteries in the lower portion of the band. Thus the main difficulty in any operation for section of the band would seem to be in regard to the peritoneal processes and the portal circulation.
Dr. Allen noted that Chang's half of the band was weaker, in keeping with his general condition:
You notice that the tissues [of Eng] are well supplied with fat; and this condition is very plainly in contrast with that of Chang. Eng's side of the band is well-nourished; Chang's end of the band presents an entirely different aspect. Chang was an invalid, and the weaker half of this organism, with less strength in the abdominal walls, and in every way less tissue, than was possessed by Eng. You can mark that distinction very plainly in the two halves of the band, proving, if we had no other means of proof, that there could not be any very intimate communication of the vessels between the two.
The Philadelphia Medical Times reported on the next day's findings:
On Thursday, February 19, the Commission continued the autopsy upon the Siamese Twins, and reported some important discoveries. They found that the two livers, which were supposed to be joined only by blood-vessels, were one body; the parenchymatous tissue being seemingly continuous between them.
The so-called tract of portal continuity is apparently liver-tissue, but the point has not yet been proven by microscopic examination. It will be remembered that Chang was said to be possessed of one more pouch than Eng. When the liver was removed, however, an upper hepatic pouch was found also proceeding from Eng, so that the band contained four pouches of peritoneum, besides liver-tissue. These disclosures show that any attempt during life to separate the twins would in all probability have proved fatal.
Medical opinion, then, was unanimous in its answer to the question "Could the twins have been divided?" The answer was a flat no, they could not have been divided.
The reasons for this were best summed up in Dr. Pancoast's written report, completed a year after his verbal autopsy report:
As far as I can learn, it was the general opinion of our profession, both in Europe and America, that any of the proposed methods of section of the band would have involved great risk to life; that upon moral and even physical considerations, it would have been well if the twins could have been separated; but that, upon such information as could be obtained of the anatomy of the band, it was thought to contain structures of such vital importance that the twins' lives would unquestionably have been endangered from shock and subsequent inflammation. . . .
The result of this autopsy must, however, in the case of any similar monster, in connection with the autopsies of analogous cases, not only bring to the surgeon's consideration as parts likely to be severed, the peritoneum and cartilages, and some arteries and nerves of lesser importance, but must also suggest the possibility of danger from the presence of the liver, if there be but one doing duty for both bodies, or from some connection between separate livers, and also from the existence of connected or united diaphragms.
As far as I have been able to find opinions expressed in regard to the propriety of an operation, it was not the fear of vascularity of the band that impressed surgeons with the danger of the procedure, but the known risk of shock and inflammation attendant upon opening or cutting into the peritoneal cavity; and, in addition, the uncertainty as to the constituents of the band, and the fear lest some additional and unforeseen complication might occur in the operation, which would increase the risk already recognized.
The post-mortem examination has revealed that the vascularity of the band would have been no obstacle, and that even the circulation in the tract of union of the livers was slight. . . . But cutting through the united diaphragms would have made an additional and grave complication, and the shock to the sympathetic nervous system would have been serious. In addition to peritonitis, diaphragmitis might have occurred, with inflammation extending to the pericardium and pleura, and a new disturbance to the heart might thus have been added to the original shock. . . .
From a consideration of the anatomical structure of the band, as described and illustrated, I think that the surgeons who refused to operate upon the Siamese twins, in their adult state, were right in their decision. I do not believe it would be judicious to operate by section of the band upon any other such exactly similar adult monstrosity, should it present itself. The experiment of applying a strong ligature around the band, when the idea was under discussion of cutting through it by the progressive ulceration caused in this way, proved that it could not be done safely, as the pressure of the ligature caused so much sickness and nervous impression that it had to be removed. This, I think, is proof of the greater dangers which would have been produced by any violent separation. Apart from such experiments, the twins could easily endure those of a much rougher character. For instance, when returning from Europe, they allowed themselves to be pulled about the deck of the vessel by a rope passed around the band...
In regard to the question of separating the dead brother from the living, I think it should have been done, and that it would have been the part of wisdom in Eng, when he found his brother so ill, to have engaged his surgeon to remain constantly at his house. It would have given him a chance for his life, and as the section would have been made through the dead parts of the band on Chang's side, the peritoneal cavity of Eng need not have been opened. Of course the result would have been uncertain, but I have the wish that it had been essayed...
In concluding the surgical consideration of the uniting band of the Siamese twins, I believe that every practical surgeon will coincide in the opinion:
That as a necessary deduction from the anatomical demonstration of its constituent parts, no operation of section of the band, for the purpose of separating the twins in adult life, could have been performed and their lives preserved.
That it would have been judicious surgery, upon the death of Chang, to have at once applied a strong ligature around the band, as far as possible from the body of Eng, and then to have cut through the band between the ligature and the body of Chang.
That whether or not the operation would have been successful in the childhood of the twins, is problematical; but that it would have been the part of wisdom and humanity to have made the effort, using all the precautions employed by Dr. Fatio in his case in 1689, with such additional ones as might have been suggested.
As to the cause of their deaths, Dr. Pan.coast and Dr. Allen shared the opinion that Chang had died of a cerebral clot, and Eng had died of sheer fright. In Dr. Allen's "Autopsy Report," he stated:
With reference to the cause of death of the Siamese twins it may be briefly said that, in consequence of the restrictions by which we are bound, no examination of the brains was made. It cannot, therefore, be proved that the cause of Chang's death was a cerebral clot, although such an opinion, from the suddenness of death, preceded as it was by hemiplegia and an immediate engorgement of the left lung, is tenable. Eng died, in all probability, in a state of syncope induced by fright—a view which the overdistended bladder and retraction of the right testicle would appear to corroborate.
To this, Dr. Pancoast added: "As to the question, `What caused Eng's death?' I am not able to tell. The post-mortem which has been made does not show the condition of his lungs. Probably the valves of his heart were in a disorganized condition, and probably also the shock upon that weakened organ caused death."
A different speculation as to the cause of Eng's death was ventured by a third physician, Dr. Summerell:
The actual work of autopsy and dissection was assigned to a man by the name of Nash.... He had always found it true that the arteries of a dead body were completely empty of blood—and that the veins were more or less filled with it. This is a well-known fact. In making the dissection in this instance, he noted that the veins of No. 1 (that died) were full of blood—that his arteries contained some blood—that the arteries of No. 2 contained a small amount of blood—that his veins contained less than the amount to be expected.
The anatomicists present, after examining the dissection, formulated a report on their anatomical findings—but were at a loss to pronounce the cause of No. 2's death. After much learned discussion on their part, Nash, who was a very rough but also quite privileged character broke in on their conversation, and bluntly informed them that there was no room for discussion—that the cause for No. 2's death was plain—that he bled to death. There being direct arterial connections between the two, when No. i's blood flowed into his veins after death—a vacuum occurred in his arteries—this immediately caused a flux from the arteries of No. 2—which soon caused his death also—practically from hemorrhage.
But most likely, Dr. Allen's opinion was the correct one: On finding himself attached to a dead brother, Eng had literally been scared to death.
Besides the fascination which the autopsy held for the medical profession, the public interest was tremendous. When the doctors decided to publish their findings in the Philadelphia Medical Times exclusively, the newspapers were enraged. The Philadelphia Times ran a story about the twins many years later, in which it described the newspaper feud:
"This put the newspaper men on their mettle. C. Cathcart Taylor, then city editor of the Press, performed some marvels of enterprise in a vain effort to capture the precious document. One of the morning newspapers did obtain possession of the report, and Taylor in his chagrin, published two columns of denunciation in the Press next day, claiming that the doctors had sold the document for cash. But after all the autopsy report was not worth all the fuss. It described the condition of affairs the doctors found, but no conclusion was reached as to whether or not the twins could have survived a separation by the knife."
Meanwhile, the news of the twins' death had generated a convulsion of false stories about their lives. For example, the Baltimore Sun mangled the stories of their courtship and marriage, said that they had fought all the time, and that their wives had been English chambermaids.
Zacharias Haynes, Chang's deaf son-in-law (married to Louise), was so furious at the Baltimore newspaper that he wrote an angry letter which appeared on February 14 in a Raleigh, North Carolina, paper. His reply to the Sun read in part:
Editor of the Daily News: Please allow me space in the columns of your paper to correct some malicious falsehoods, which appeared in the correspondence column of the Baltimore Sun, and were copied by several other papers, in relation to the late Siamese twins. I feel totally incapable of giving the intelligent writer such a reply as the falsehoods demand. . . .
They were married in 1843, five miles from Wilkesboro, N.C., to ladies native of Wilkes county, N.C., and not to chambermaids from England; so there is not a word of truth put forth in the assertions of the Sun concerning their courtship and marriage. . . .
They were very even-tempered themselves, and did not seem to be quarrelsome with each other, and no one but a donkey would, for a moment give credit to the atrocious lies concerning the fight in Barnum's museum. . . .
The correspondent of the Sun charges them with being so rapacious that it prevented showmen from making any proposals to them. This is utterly untrue. They never exacted anything great from their employers, and then if either side was favored their employers were the ones. More than one instance has oc curred where their employers were unsuccessful, through bad management or otherwise. Then they would not exact their full wages. They were considered by all who knew them to be generous-hearted men, and the good people of Surry county will testify to this fact.
Z.W.H.
Preceding the autopsy, Chang's son Christopher had left San Francisco for Mount Airy. Reaching home and finding the bodies gone, he went on to Philadelphia, where he met Eng's son Stephen.
Like Zacharias Haynes, both sons were infuriated by the rumors and scandal which surrounded their fathers' deaths, and were determined to return the bodies to North Carolina and give them a decent burial. The Philadelphia Press wrote:
The sons deny the report that the family intend to make speculation of the remains by exhibition. They evince much filial feeling on this point, and it is to be hoped that the correction of the report may be as wide as the publication of the false statement has been. So deeply do they feel in the matter that they inquired anxiously if the embalming process could not be un-done and the bodies allowed peacefully to decay, and on being assured the process could not be reversed, and decomposition must now be a very slow process, they expressed evident regret.
They also spoke strongly about the report that the commission went South with a large sum of money, and that the transfer was the result of a business bargain with the widows of the twins. They said this report was generally credited in their section, and that all the family could not disabuse the minds of friends and neighbors on the subject. They desired Drs. Pancoast and Allen to give them a formal written denial of this rumor, to be shown to the people, and, if necessary, to be published; which request, of course, the commission at once complied with.
Another newspaper wrote of Christopher: "He demanded the return of the bodies. His attitude was decidedly unfriendly, and the College of Surgeons, really having little further use for the bodies, consented to his demand that they be returned to North Carolina for burial."
Finally, it was arranged for the bodies to be sent by Adam's Express to Salem, North Carolina.
Having satisfied the curiosity of the medical profession, Chang and Eng were brought back to their home soil at last—but not in their entirety. Dr. Allen received this letter, probably from Christopher and Stephen, dated April 1, 1874:
Dr. Allen
Enclosed you will find the receipt for bringing the bodies of Papa & Uncle from Salem to our home. You will please send the money by post-office order.
My Mother and Aunt was very sorry that we did not bring the lungs & entrals of our Fathers with the bodies home, and as we did not bring them, you can keep them until further orders from the families.
Respectfully G R [sic] & S D BUNKER
While the Miitter Museum still has the joined livers of the twins preserved in formalin, it is not known what became of the "lungs & entrals."
When the bodies of the twins arrived in North Carolina, it was not considered safe to bury them immediately owing to the danger from graverobbers. A local newspaper reported: "For a year they were kept in the cellar of [Eng's] house, the casket covered with charcoal and heavily guarded by the family day and night. After a year they were buried on the lawn near [Chang's] house."
In 1897, a mere twenty-three years after their deaths, the American Medical Association declared that had the twins been alive then, they could have been safely separated:
"Today, as was clearly revealed in a number of addresses made before the recent gathering in this city [Philadelphia] of the American Medical Association, a different verdict would be reached by reason more especially of the revelations regarding the use of antiseptics in surgery made by Lister. Among the physicians who went to Mt. Airy, North Carolina, to bring the dual body of the Siamese monstrosity to this city and who assisted in the subsequent autopsy was Dr. Thomas H. Andrews, now police surgeon of Philadelphia. He who joined in the decision of Dr. Pancoast twenty-three years ago now unhesitatingly declares that Chang and Eng could have been separated, were they alive at the present time, without endangering the life of either."
Perhaps Adelaide and the many children who still survived heard of this new opinion. One wonders what they thought and felt knowing that had Chang and Eng lived on after such an operation, they might have been "normal" husbands and fathers.
Since the deaths of Chang and Eng, there has been an average of five conjoined twins born somewhere in the world annually. Most have been stillborn or have died shortly after birth. Of the survivors—and only about three hundred conjoined twins in all history have lived beyond a few days—many have been successfully separated. Some of these were joined in a manner similar to that of Chang and Eng, by a ligament or band, while others were connected in more complicated and often bizarre ways.
One of the first recorded modern cases of Siamese twins who at least briefly survived surgical separation were the Orissa sisters, Radica and Doadica, born in a village in India in 1889, and imprisoned for being embodiments of the devil. When one of them contracted tuberculosis, a French surgeon separated them. Doadica died immediately, but Radica survived, if only for a short time.
The first such twins to be separated and live for a year or more were a pair of sisters, Nancy and Ellen, born in Cleveland, Ohio, and joined at their breastbones by a one-and-a-half-inch band. They were successfully separated in 1952. A year later, Carolyn and Catherine Mouton, with connected lower intestines and joined at their lower spines, were successfully cut apart by a team of fifteen doctors in New Orleans. In March 1955, a pair of twoyear-old conjoined twins born in Siam (Thailand), Prisna and Napit Atkinson, were successfully separated in Chicago.
In 1965, two six-year-old Italian girls, Giuseppina and Maria Santina Foglia, joined at the base of their spines, were separated in Turin. After the operation, Giuseppina asked, "Is it really me? Am I really myself?" And then she said to her sister, "You're so far away!"
In September 1974, a twenty-five-member surgical team at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia undertook the separation of two sisters from the Dominican Republic, Clara and Altagracia Rodriguez, who were connected at their abdomens and pelvic areas. After a ten-and-a-half-hour operation, the girls were successfully severed, and remain healthy and independent.
In 1976, a pair of Wichita, Kansas, girls, who shared a liver as had Chang and Eng, survived a four-hour operation in which the doctors were able to divide the common organ and give each child a separate functioning liver.
Had these surgical feats been possible in i8ii, when Chang and Eng were born, there would not exist today the term "Siamese twins," and the brothers would have been two little-known duckegg merchants in Siam, rather than the rare and quixotic caprice of Mother Nature that gave the world six decades of awe and wonder.
~ * ~
Adelaide and Sallie Bunker had been married thirty-one years when Chang and Eng died.
In the years their husbands had been with them, the sisters had been very much in the limelight, constantly publicized, regularly visited by the press and curiosity-seekers. With their widowhood most of that public interest diminished, and the sisters retreated into privacy. They would not receive the press or strangers, and lived in relative seclusion.
But Adelaide and Sallie were not alone in the small, close-knit community of Mount Airy, North Carolina. They had numerous friends and neighbors who were helpful. Above all, they had their large families. Eight of Adelaide's ten children were alive during many of her years without Chang. And seven of Sallie's eleven children were alive during her years without Eng.
In the early period of their widowhood, Adelaide and Sallie still had young children to raise and educate. Two of Sallie's seven children were only fourteen and eight, and four of Adelaide's eight were sixteen, twelve, ten, and five years old. Adelaide was the one who believed in education, and she saw to it that her youngsters, as well as Sallie's, attended the one-room log cabin schoolhouse the twins had established on the dividing line between their farm and the Greenwood farm. Also, Adelaide and Sallie kept up their interest in the nearby White Plains Baptist Church, which their husbands had helped build on land they had donated. Neither sister was wealthy, but both had been left financially secure. Actually, Adelaide was much the better off of the sisters, because she had encouraged Chang to take more land and fewer slaves when the twins divided up their assets.
Sallie survived eighteen years as Eng's widow. On April 29, 1892, when Benjamin Harrison was starting his fourth year as President of the United States, Sallie died at the age of seventy. She is not buried beside her husband, as is commonly believed, but for some unknown reason still rests on Eng's farm beneath a gravestone that is now hard to find.
Adelaide remained the sole survivor of the original foursome. Her son Patrick would long after remember her as "a handsome woman and a fine Christian," and he thought she had a "wonderfully good disposition." A friend would remember her as being "cute." Only one tragedy marred these years. In agog, her deaf son, Jesse, aged forty-eight, was killed by a bolt of lightning.
In all, Adelaide lived forty-three years without Chang. Often, from the window of the downstairs parlor, she would gaze out at the grave of Chang and Eng in the front yard beside the large holly tree. The world beyond was rapidly changing, and still Adelaide lived on. President Woodrow Wilson was in the White House, and the First World War was long since under way. Little more than six weeks after the United States entered that war against the kaiser's Germany, on May 21, 1917, Adelaide Bunker died. Her long obituary in the local newspaper read, in part:
Mrs. Adelaide Bunker, widow of Chang, one of the Siamese Twins, died at her home three miles southwest of this city last Monday morning at 6:30 o'clock. Had she lived till October she would have attained the great age of 94. She had been in declining health for several years, though, up to two or three years ago, she continued to have a supervision over the household duties. She lived to a great age and died because her physical powers were exhausted. It could not be said that she died of disease...
Mrs. Bunker was the grandmother of 39 living grandchildren, some are probably dead. There are i8 living great grandchildren.
Those who knew her speak of her as a good woman. She was a good neighbor, for 65 years a loyal and consistent member of White Plains Baptist church, but her true womanly character was shown in her devotion and loyalty to her children.
When it was time to bury Adelaide, one of her sons-in-law, Caleb Hill Haynes, who had married her daughter Margaret Elizabeth, suggested that she be laid to rest in the graveyard of the White Plains Baptist Church, since the church had meant so much to her for most of her life. Further, Haynes suggested, since Chang's farm, where the twins were buried, could one day become someone else's property, it might be well to disinter Chang and Eng and rebury them in the church graveyard with Adelaide. The family members agreed to these proposals.
And so, in May 1917, the walnut coffin containing the joined bodies of Chang and Eng was unearthed and lifted out of the plot beside the holly tree on the front lawn of Chang's house. Apparently, the bodies of the twins were briefly exposed to sight, for one witness recalled that "when they were dug up to be reburied there were very few bones—a little hair—and a shoe heel with nails in it." Then the coffin was closed.
As the coffin was being moved from Chang's property to the White Plains Baptist Church cemetery, a white dove flew down and alighted on the coffin. The dove rested on the coffin until it reached the cemetery, and then it flew away. Those attending the funeral looked upon the dove with "awe and regarded it as an omen from God."
Five of Adelaide's six living children were present to see their mother buried and their father and uncle reburied.
Today, the state of North Carolina has a metal sign posted outside the White Plains Baptist Church. It reads:
SIAMESE TWINS
ENG AND CHANG, THE
SIAMESE TWINS, BORN IN
1811 IN SIAM. SETTLED
AS FARMERS IN THIS
NEIGHBORHOOD. DIED 1874.
GRAVE 100 YARDS WEST.
And one hundred yards west, in the crowded cemetery to the rear of the church, stands the white granite headstone on its granite base. The headstone gives the names of four persons, although only three lie buried beneath it. Chiseled into the headstone is the inscription:
|
ENG BUNKER |
CHANG BUNKER |
|
May 11, 1811 |
May 11, 1811 |
|
Jan. 17, 1874 |
Jan. 17, 1874 |
|
HIS WIFE |
HIS WIFE |
|
SARAH A. YATES |
ADELAIDE YATES |
|
Dec. 18, 1822 |
Oct. 11, 1823 |
|
Apr. 29, 1892 |
May 21, 1917 |
SIAMESE TWINS CHANG AND ENG
BORN IN SIAM
BUNKER
~ * ~
Between them, the two couples had produced twenty-one children. What finally happened to the offspring of these unique matings?
Of Eng Bunker's eleven children, four died during his lifetime. The first to die was a daughter, Eng's sixth child, Rosalyn. One day in 1852, when Rosalyn was four months old, she was left at home with a female slave to watch over her. The slave was negligent, and little Rosalyn accidentally fell into an open fireplace. She died of third-degree burns. Thirteen years later, in a single year, 1865, Eng lost two more daughters. Julia, nineteen, died in February, cause unknown, and Georgianna, two years and five months old, was scalded by boiling water in September and died of the burns. The last to die was Eng's first and oldest child, and one of his favorites, Katherine, who expired at twenty-seven from tuberculosis.
With possibly one exception, Eng's remaining seven children lived on into their seventies and eighties. The oldest child Eng had left behind at his death was Stephen, a veteran of the Civil War who was in charge of his father's farm. Eventually Stephen married, and after his death in 1920 at seventy-three, his widow Susan applied for and obtained a Confederate Civil War pension from the state of North Carolina. Surry County folk say this marriage had produced a son, Woo Bunker, a night watchman for a hosiery mill, in retirement in 1976.
Eng's fourth child was a son, James Montgomery, who left Mount Airy after the Civil War to become a farmer in Kansas, where he died in the 193os in his eighties.
Eng's fifth child, a son, Patrick Henry, also left home after the Civil War and migrated to Kansas with his brother James. Patrick Henry married, and gave Eng four grandchildren. Patrick Henry's wife later asked for a divorce, as well as custody of the children and ownership of the farm, and she was granted everything she wanted. Patrick Henry fell on hard times, and in his old age became an inmate of the county poor farm in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, where he spent his last years fishing and reminiscing about his famous father and uncle, until his death in 1938 at the age of eighty-eight.
Eng's seventh child was a son, William, who made his home in Mount Airy his entire life. He married, had children, and died in 1932 at the age of seventy-seven. William had a granddaughter, Gladys, a nurse and a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army, who visited Siam (Thailand) and was royally received because she was related to the legendary Chang and Eng.
Eng's eighth child, also a son, was Frederick, who was sixteen when his father died. He moved to Missouri and, according to a descendant, was killed in a barroom fight in St. Louis, date unknown.
Eng's ninth child was Rosella, who was fourteen at his death. She married a man named Ashby, and was the only Eng daughter to raise a family. One of her sons, George Ashby, grew up to become president of the Union Pacific Railroad. She died in 1941 at eighty-two.
The youngest of Eng's children—only eight years old when Eng died—was Robert. He came to be known as Big Bob. He married and had two children, a daughter, Kate, who became a schoolteacher, and a son, Robert, known as Little Bob. When Little Bob married and had twins, Big Bob asked him to name them Eng and Chang, and this was done. After Big Bob died in 1951, at eighty-five—he had predicted he would be the last living child of the twins, and he was—Kate inherited Eng's old house, began to restore it, and became the keeper of the flame. Big Bob had not permitted any alterations, repairs, or painting in Eng's house. Once, when someone found that a few nails in the front-porch floor had worked loose and had been pounded back in, Big Bob indignantly pried them loose again. Little Bob died in 1975, and one of his twins, the modern-day Eng, inherited the family tobacco farm, while his twin, the modern-day Chang, is a career man in the United States Air Force.
As to "the other side of the creek"—which was how the two families referred to one another—Chang's heirs were more affluent than his brother's but fared no better or worse in their lives. Of Chang's ten children, only one was lost while Chang was still alive. This was, of course, his oldest child and favorite daughter, Josephine, twenty-three, who apparently suffered a heart attack while riding home on her horse one August day in 1867 and fell to the ground dead.
Chang's oldest surviving child, Christopher, was nearly twenty-nine when his father died. He had hurried home from California at the time to take charge of the twins' burial. Christopher, the cavalryman who had been captured at Moorefield and imprisoned in Ohio, always took his service for the Confederacy very seriously. He rarely missed a Confederate reunion. After the war he had run his father's farm whenever Chang was away, and later he built a house on land of his own nearby. Unfortunately, he be-came estranged from his mother Adelaide, and most of his broth-ers and sisters, after Chang's death. What happened was this: In 1879, Christopher was taken to court in a property dispute. Christopher won the case, but in so doing incurred $525.15 in costs. He felt, under the terms of Chang's will, that this sum was an estate expense, not his alone. Adelaide would not have it. Christopher sued his mother, naming his brothers and sisters as co-defendants. The case was fought in the courts for twenty-six years. In 1995, the North Carolina Supreme Court held for Christopher. He won, but because of an error, he did not collect. In the meantime, the legal action had alienated him from the family.
In 1882, when he was thirty-seven, Christopher married twenty-two-year-old Mary Haynes. They had a son, Christopher L., who in turn married Emma Snow, a local Mount Airy girl. Christopher senior told his son and daughter-in-law that he would will them his 1,000-acre farm if they had children, but if they did not, the property was to go to the Baptist Children's Homes of North Carolina. Christopher died in 1932, at the age of eighty-eight, without grandchildren, and much of his estate—worth half a million dollars three decades later—went to the Baptists, who used a portion of the inheritance to build Bunker Cottage at the Kennedy Home in Kinston, North Carolina.
Chang's third child, Nancy or Nannie, who had accompanied her father to England on his final visit there, had contracted tu-berculosis from her ailing cousin Katherine, who also was along. At her father's death in 1874, Nannie had frantically written her older brother Christopher begging him to come home from San Francisco. But before he could reach Mount Airy, and the day before the autopsy report was read to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, Nannie died at the age of twenty-six.
Chang's fourth and fifth children were both daughters. Susan died in 1922 at the age of seventy-two; Victoria died in 1896 at the age of forty-four.
Chang's sixth child was also a daughter, the deaf Louise who was specially provided for in her father's will. Her husband, Zacharias Haynes, who was deaf as the result of an early scarlet fever attack, taught at the North Carolina Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind, in Raleigh, for thirty-two years. Louise had married Zach when she was eighteen. They had nine children; one became a North Carolina state legislator, another a teacher in the Kentucky School, and another a bank executive. The latter, who was six feet four and looked Oriental, cheerfully answered to the nickname "Chink." It is Chink's son Milton Haynes, a handsome young restaurant manager, who now owns the twins' expense account book. Chang's Louise died in 1934 at the age of seventy-eight.
Chang's seventh child was a son, Albert, who had gone to Russia with his father and uncle on their last trip abroad. He was attending college in Guilford, North Carolina, and was not quite seventeen, when he learned of his father's death. After Christopher returned home from the West to take over the family affairs, he found he was executor of his father's estate. It was his duty to distribute Chang's estate among his brothers and sisters and his mother. Albert strongly objected to the way Christopher did this. His elder siblings had gone through college with their expenses paid by their father. Albert was still in college, and needed money to finish. He felt that he should be given this money in addition to his share of Chang's estate. His older brother Christopher disagreed and refused to give him the extra money. This led to a permanent break between the two brothers.
Albert, however, won in the end. It was he who eventually inherited Chang's house on the hill from his mother Adelaide, with whom he had lived until her death. In later years, Albert enjoyed sitting at the window and staring out at the corncrib when it was filled after the fall harvest. At such times, he would say with satisfaction, "We're ser—meaning set with food for the approaching winter. He proved to be an astute businessman, and owned several profitable farms.
Albert remained a bachelor until the age of sixty-five, when he suddenly married a young woman who had been a music major at Meredith Baptist College for Women. They had three bright daughters. One afternoon when Albert took one of his daughters into Mount Airy, someone asked him, "Cap'n, is this your granddaughter?" Albert snapped back, "No, by God, it's my young'un." When he was eighty-five years old, Albert drove another of his daughters to Duke University to enroll her there personally. He died in 1944 at the age of eighty-seven.
Chang's next child was a son, Jesse, born deaf and dumb like Louise. He studied at the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind in Raleigh, married, had a family, and owned a farm. He was the one who, in igoq when he was forty-eight, was struck by lightning on his farm and killed.
Chang's ninth child was his daughter Margaret Elizabeth, who was ten when her father died. She was twenty-six when she married Caleb Haynes. She had eleven children, and several became extremely successful. One of her children headed a textile company, another an underwear company, and a third became the most famous of Chang's grandsons. This was Major General Caleb Vance Haynes, of the United States Air Force, an aide to President Wilson at the Versailles Peace Conference, chief of the American Bomber Command in China during the Second World War, and holder of the Silver Star and Distinguished Flying Cross. Margaret died in 1950 at the age of eighty-seven.
The last of Chang's ten children, Hattie, was five years old when her father died. She lived until 1945, when she died at the age of seventy-seven.
According to Bunker descendants now residing in North Carolina, there "are probably at least one thousand living grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren scattered across the country." Many of these faintly resemble the Siamese Twins, possessing the same black hair and dark eyes, as well as the twins' shrewdness, cleverness, and honesty. Most Chang and Eng descendants also have other characteristics in common: a real love of the land on which they were raised; a belief in keeping their word, and an explosive temper when others do not keep theirs; and a sensitivity about having descended from the Siamese Twins.
This sensitivity is not apparent in all descendants, but it exists side by side with the word "freak." One Bunker relative recalled:
"The wife of a Bunker male descendant innocently bought a figurine of the Siamese Twins that she saw somewhere. When she brought it home, her husband was furious. In earlier years, many of the descendants were very defensive about the twins being their fathers or grandfathers. And with good reason. They were always being asked perfectly insulting questions, were openly leered at, and the like. The Bunker women especially were affected by this. Upon more than one occasion, a Bunker girl-and they were attractive and in many cases beautiful girls—found a swain had disappeared after the young man's family discovered he was courting a Bunker."
Besides a thousand or more descendants, what remains of Chang and Eng? Pieces of their original custom-made furniture exist, and many personal relics, too. The double chair in which they sat has survived. However, the bed in which they slept—and died—was lost in a fire that destroyed Eng's old house in 1956. Still in the hands of relatives are the twins' four-tune music box, their gold watches and chains, their amethyst seal reading "Chang-Eng," their silver cigar case, their wind-up white metal watch, their Canadian cigarette case embroidered in flowers, their two travel trunks, and their copy of The Psalms of David signed "C.E."
But something more significant remains. In the dictionaries of the world lies their immortality:
Siamese Twins. 1. congenitally united twins . . . 2. any twins joined together in any manner.
They have become part of the language, every language. With the birth of any Siamese twins anywhere, the Siamese Twins are resurrected in memory.
In North Carolina, they sleep their eternal sleep together. In the world, they live, perhaps forever.