Background
Chang and Eng Bunker were born on May 11, 1811 in Meklong, Siam [now Thailand]. They were the sons of a Chinese father and of a mother who was half Chinese.
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Chang and Eng Bunker
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They owed their future celebrity to the fact that they were joined at the waist by a cartilaginous structure, which grew to be about four inches long and eight in circumference. Their parents were poor, and the death of the father in 1819 compelled the boys to fend for themselves. After various makeshifts they went into the duck and egg business and were doing well when in 1824 a British merchant, Robert Hunter, espied them stripped to the waist and realized at once their educational value. He bargained with their mother for their services, and a brother fell heir to the poultry yard. In charge of an American, Capt. Coffin, they left Bangkok on April 1, 1829, and on August 16 arrived in Boston. The public was assured unctuously that the moral character of the youths was irreproachable and that "the most fastidious female [would] find nothing in the exhibition to wound her delicate feelings. " To those who suggested the feasibility of a sundering operation it was answered that the twins were so attached to each other, sympathetically and morally as well as physically, that they heard such suggestions with dismay; and their movements, marvelously accommodated to each other, and their unfeigned solicitude for one another's comfort seemed to testify to the truth of this. After astounding and edifying the North Atlantic seaboard for eight weeks, Chang and Eng embarked for England and for further triumphs. On March 4, 1831, they landed once more in New York, but the rest of their extensive travels here and abroad need not be told. On reaching their majority they began to profit by their tours, the receipts having previously gone to their owner. When they had acquired a fortune of some $60, 000 they settled as farmers in Wilkes, and later in Surry, County, took out naturalization papers, received by act of the legislature the surname of Bunker, and in April 1843 were united in marriage to the Misses Sarah and Adelaide Yates, daughters of David Yates of Wilkes County. The Civil War deprived them of their slaves and of much of their money and made it necessary for them to resume their travels for a while. Chang, the more intelligent but also the more irritable of the two, began to drink heavily and when intoxicated would smash furniture and toss the pieces on the fire. Frequently the twins came to blows and once were bound over to keep the peace. Among their neighbors, however, they continued to maintain their reputation for honesty and fair dealing. Their end was hastened by Chang's intemperance. In August 1870, on a voyage back from Liverpool, he suffered a paralytic stroke. In the night of January 16-17, 1874, Eng awoke to find his brother dead beside him; he himself died, perhaps from fright, a few hours later.
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Chang had ten children and Eng nine, but their collateral domestic life was unhappy. The wives quarreled so that the brothers were forced to maintain separate establishments, which they visited alternately for three days at a time.
