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Grave of Original Siamese Twins Although there were recorded births of conjoined twins before the nineteenth century, the first such twins to gain worldwide attention were born in the Southeast Asian land of Siam, now Thailand, thus giving the label Siamese twins to all such children. The twin boys, joined at the chest by a band of cartilage and flesh, were born of Chinese peasant parents in May 1811. Their mother named them Chang and Eng and required them as youngsters to strenuously exercise their connecting band until they were able to stand side by side and live as normally as possible. At fourteen, while working as peddlers in Bangkok, the twins met and befriended a Scottish trader, Robert Hunter. Four years later, Hunter teamed with an American ship captain, Abel Coffin, to bring the boys to the United States in the hope of exhibiting them for profit. The boys arrived in Boston in August 1829 and were an immediate sensation. They went on to New York, then to London, drawing huge crowds. As their fame spread, they went to work for flamboyant showman Phineas Barnum and became his second most popular attraction after Tom Thumb. By the time they were in their mid-twenties, the twins were touring the country on their own. They had won American citizenship and taken the family name Bunker, offered them by a New York man named Fred Bunker in a chance encounter at the naturalization office. In June 1837, they scheduled a show in the North Carolina town of Wilkesboro in the green foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Tired of traveling and exhibiting themselves, the twins became entranced by Wilkesboro's countryside and decided to stay. They opened a store, which failed, and two years later they bought 110 acres in the Trap Hill community, built a home, and became farmers and woodcutters. The twins had longed for marriage and families but that seemed impossible before they met Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of a neighboring farmer. A scandal ensued when the twins appeared in public with the sisters, and the four were ordered not to see each other again. They continued to meet secretly, however, and Chang and Eng, desperate to be married, went to the College of Surgery in Philadelphia and requested an operation to seperate them. The twins had already been examined by some of the world's leading medical experts, who had decided that separation was too risky. Doctors at Philadelphia didn't want to attempt the operation, but the twins insisted. Meanwhile, Sarah and Adelaide learned of their plans, rushed to Philadelphia, begged them not to go through with it, and promised to marry them as they were. The four returned to Wilkes County and on April 13, 1843, in their local Baptist church, Chang was married to Adelaide, then nineteen, and Eng to Sarah, then twenty. The twins were just a month shy of their thirty-second birthday. The four moved into the twins' house and both twins soon fathered children. With their families burgeoning and quarreling, the twins bought land in the White Plains section of adjoining Surry County, near Mount Airy, and built two houses a mile apart. Afterward, the twins spent three days in one house, then three at the other, never varying their pattern. Chang eventually fathered ten children, Eng twelve. The twins got along remarkable well considering that they had different personalities and interests. Chang drank; Eng was a teetotaler. Eng liked to sit up playing poker with friends; Chang would nod off. Chang was irritable, Eng even-tempered. A keen sense of humor in both helped them accept their predicament. Once when they got into a fight atop a hay wagon, Chang held Eng down. "If you don't let go, so help me, I'll throw you off this wagon," Eng threatened. Then both broke into laughter, realizing the absurdity of the statement. The two families thrived until the Civil War, when hard times came. After the war, Chang and Eng, then well into their fifties, were again drawn into show business to try to make money. While touring Europe, they consulted the top medical authorities in England, Germany, and France about separation, but it was again ruled out. On the way home, Chang suffered a stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed and deaf. Afterward, he began drinking heavily and his health deteriorated even more, alarming Eng, whose health remained good. To no avail, Eng pleaded for Chang to stop drinking. In January 1874, Chang developed severe bronchitis and chest pains and was told by his doctor to stay in bed, but when time came for him to move to Eng's home for three days, he insisted on going. At Eng's home, Chang was unable to sleep, suffered chills, and wanted to sit up at night, much to Eng's discomfort. In the early morning hours of January 17, Eng insisted that they go to bed. Chang agreed, and a few hours later, Eng awoke to discover Chang's labored breathing had ceased. He called for help, and family members rushed to his side. A son told Eng that Chang was dead. "Then I am going too," Eng said and became hysterical, sweating and twisting, as if trying to shake free of his dead brother. While some family members tried to calm him, others rushed to fetch his doctor 3 miles away in Mount Airy and to tell Chang's family of his death. Within an hour, Eng had slipped into a coma. After another hour, he died before the doctor arrived. Two weeks after the twins' deaths, their families allowed a limited autopsy. It showed that a small artery passed through their connecting band, which would have made separating them difficult at the time. It also showed that Eng was obviously healthy and apparently died from fright. The families wouldn't allow the twins to be separated in death, and they were buried in a large tin coffin in the Baptist church cemetery. Eng's wife, Sarah, who died in 1892, and Chang's wife, Adelaide, who died at age ninety-four in 1917, later joined them in the plot. The grave is at Old White Plains Baptist Church on old US 601, 2 miles west of Mount Airy.
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