Eng and Chang

Written By: Jane Gibson Nardy - Cashiers Historical Society | Issue: 2016/12 - December

My phone rang one night a few years back and on the other end of the line was a 50-year summer resident of Glenville who introduced himself as Woody Haynes.  He wanted to talk about my most recent Laurel Magazine article and when I mentioned that my Zachary family came to Cashiers Valley from Surry County, North Carolina (later Yadkin County), he said his family was from Mt. Airy, North Carolina, where he was born and lived the first 13 years of his life. 

I replied, “Oh, that’s where the world famous Siamese Twins lived.”  Then Woody said, “Yes, one of the Siamese Twins was my great-grandfather.” 

I was speechless.  

Woody went on to say he was descended from Chang, the twin on the right and the twin on the left was named Eng.  It wasn’t until the age of 16 that Woody learned from a friend the identity of his great-grandfather.  

Woody asked his father, Charles D. Haynes, if this was true and his father said “yes” but added, “We don’t talk about it.” 

To learn more about his ancestry, Woody turned to one of his aunts who told him the story.

Eng and Chang, three-quarters Chinese and one-quarter Thai (Siamese), were born in 1811 on a riverboat in Thailand and remained there until at age 18, after many years of notoriety in their country and with the permission of their mother, they were taken to Boston by an American seaman and trader and his partner, a Scottish trader who would “display the twins to the world with great dignity.”  

Until age 21, Eng and Chang appeared before large crowds of paying audiences in America and Great Britain who found the twins unfailingly charming and gracious, with impeccable manners.  With their superior intelligence, they had quickly learned to speak and read English and as they reached their majority in 1832, they announced their independence.  They went on to “be their own men,” handling their own exhibitions and keeping for themselves all the financial profits.  They visited countries all over Europe, kept meticulous records, met kings and queens and after years of work they took a well deserved vacation in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in early 1839.  Tired of their constant travel but not wanting to return to Thailand, they decided to make North Carolina their home so they became naturalized American citizens and chose Bunker as their surname.  They fell in love with the Yates sisters, Adelaide and Sarah and married them in 1843 when the twins were age 32.  

Deciding to be farmers, they built separate houses with the twins, spending three days at Adelaide’s house and three days at Sarah’s house.  Eng fathered 11 children and Chang fathered 10.  The number of their descendants today would be astounding.  The twins died in January 1874, just a few hours apart.  To quote from the book “The Two,” “In North Carolina they sleep their eternal sleep together. In the world they live, perhaps forever.”