WEBVTT - Sideshow 11: Inseparable 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:10.320 Even in death, Moses and Aaron Wilcox stuck together. They 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:14.440 were twins, after all, and identical ones at that. Maybe 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.800 it's cliche to say this, but the fact was that 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.959 they did everything together. They went to the same school, 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.920 started a business, married sisters, and had the same number 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:28.840 of children. Even in their pastoral hometown of killing Worth, Connecticut, 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.560 their friends and neighbors, the people who should have known 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:35.239 them best, were often stumped when playing Who's Who. To 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.280 think of one without the other was inconceivable to other people, yes, 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.080 but even more so to themselves. As far as we know, 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.360 Moses and Aaron weren't keen on separation and independence. Quite 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.440 the opposite. In fact, they were far more interested in 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.559 doubling down on their twindom, so much so that they 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.400 decided they were going to create a lasting legacy based 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.600 on this very principle, their own twin utopia. Smack in 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:05.920 the northeastern corner of Ohio, the brothers Wilcox got some land, 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.920 moved west, and found themselves in the sparsely populated township 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.720 of Millsville. But to have a town, you must have people, 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:16.720 So Moses and Aaron quickly got to work. They began 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.920 buying and parceling off the land for a steel bringing 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.240 in more and more settlers. Eventually they would make Millsville 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:26.120 and offer they'd give the town six free acres to 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.080 be developed into a public square, plus a bit of 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.360 seed money to create the town's first school, and in return, 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.759 all the town needed to do was changed its name 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:39.840 from Millsville to Twinsburg. The town readily accepted the deal, 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.360 and the name stuck. Not only did it stick, but 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.080 the town has continued to grow in ways the brothers 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:49.920 could never have dreamed. The twin identity has become so 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.040 baked into the DNA of that town that every summer 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.440 since nineteen six it hosts the Twins Day Festival. It's 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.800 the largest annual gathering of twins in the world, with 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:04.920 thousands of pairs attending. Naturally, Singleton's and other kinds of 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.600 multiples are welcome, but for this occasion, the twosomes are 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.040 the stars. There are all sorts of contests, parades, and 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.560 talent shows at the festival. Twins come dressed in matching sets, 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.040 hoping to play up their likeness, and it's there, more 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.320 than anywhere else in the world, where they can be 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.920 among people who experienced the same rare fortune of sharing 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.959 real estates in a single uterus. But there's something else there, 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.120 because it's more than just a celebration of twindom. In fact, 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.880 the festival functions as an ongoing scientific investigation centering around 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:42.320 the question of nature versus nurture. For years, Twinsburg is 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.639 drawn researcher is interested in studying the effects of genetics 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:51.920 on behavior, personality, predispositions, and diseases. Festival participants, for their parts, 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.040 are often more than happy to oblige. It's not uncommon 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.120 to hear stories of multiples being separated at birth, only 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.000 to find each other years later, and sometimes with uncanny results. 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.840 These siblings, who often haven't known the other has existed 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:11.360 for their entire life, have been known to develop similar interests, mannerisms, 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.120 and temperaments. Some would also talk about the feeling that 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.720 a piece of themselves had been missing. Scientists are only 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.760 now beginning to develop ideas about why this might be, 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.320 but we certainly have a long way to go in 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.440 our understanding. And as for Moses and Aaron, they would 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.200 go on to spend the rest of their lives together. 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:33.399 In fact, that the age of fifty, they have said 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.000 that they became sick on the very same day and 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:38.880 died within hours of each other, and not wishing to 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.240 ever change that they were even buried in the same grave. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.000 I probably don't need to tell you that families are complicated. 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.840 Sibling relationships are at the heart of so many great stories, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.400 from old myths, religious lessons, folk tales, and even true crime. 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.400 Although our genetic makeup might make siblings appear similar, they 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:02.440 often can't be more different, and that genetic lottery, a 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.040 random ticket plucked from the grab bag of d n 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.880 A is something that will never be able to escape. 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:23.400 I'm Aaron Manky and welcome to the side show. Depending 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.680 on where you're listening right now, you may be able 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.159 to see it tonight. Gemini, one of the most recognizable 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.840 constellations in the world, is made up of eighty five 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.159 stars that are visible to the naked eye. It's too 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.080 brightest stars. Castor and Pollox are named after some of 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.440 the most famous twins in Greek mythology, and their pedigree 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.360 was nothing to sniff ats either. Their mother was a 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.560 princess who later became a Spartan queen. The boys had 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.560 two different fathers, though Castor was the mortal son of 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.000 tim Dareus, while Pollox was the divine son of Zeus. 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.960 The myth tells us that when Castor was fatally wounded 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.200 later in life, Zeus offered his son Pollocks a choice 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.400 spend his time as a demigod on Mount Olympus or 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.920 give half of his immortality to his brother. Pollocks chose 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.000 to save his twin and gave him half his immortality, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.000 and in doing so they would travel together between Mount 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.240 Olympus and Hades in equal measure, never again to be separated. 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.400 In the story of human history, the specter of twins 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.000 looms large. For eons. Stories of twins have belonged to 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.320 the realms of old world religion and folklore. Thinkers have 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.200 been obsessed with understanding their nature. Accounting for only three 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.560 percent of natural births, their cultural effect has been outsized 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:44.080 and profound. Scientific curiosity about twins goes back to ancient times. Hippocrates, 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:46.680 the famous physician, wrote about a pair of brothers who 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.240 he suspected as being twins, based on the fact that 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.960 the two became sick with the same illness at the 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.960 same time, which progressed at the same rate and then 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.720 cleared up simultaneously. The modern scientific study of identical twins, though, 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.600 seems to have begun around eighteen seventy five with Sir 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:07.599 Francis Galton, the cousin of another than Charles Darwin. The 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.960 most common twins are fraternal, meaning that two babies are 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:15.240 born from two different fertilized eggs. Identical twins result from 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:17.719 the splitting of a single egg, and the most rare 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.800 form of all are twins who are born conjoined, the 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.880 result of an incomplete separation of an early embryo. Conjoined 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.560 twins are further classified according to how and where they 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.600 are joined, and they can be fused just about anywhere, 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:36.560 sharing any number of body parts and internal organs. Now, 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.080 historically such births have caused quite an alarm, often being 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.760 blamed on the devil or witchcraft. Interestingly, one of the 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.000 first recorded attempts to surgically separate conjoined twin boys was 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.880 in the Byzantine Empire during the tenth century, but the 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:55.159 first successful surgical separation of conjoined twins was in Switzerland 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:59.200 in sight nine. Twins have appeared on stage for just 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.920 about as long. For his part. P. T. Barnum began 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.919 billing twins as living curiosities, highlighting their otherness alongside his 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:11.440 other born and manufactured x. The questions were always suggested 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.440 to the audience. Were they one person, were they too? 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.520 Who would they be without the other? And could they 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:22.080 or should they be separated? Many can join twins undergo 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.760 surgery so they can lead more independent lives, but for some, 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.520 choosing to stay together has offered something more attractive, the 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:44.880 path to fame and prosperity. Their birth foreshadowed disaster, or 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.080 so king rama, the second of Siam thought for the 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.720 price of a few inches of connective tissue at their 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:54.600 stern um. The boys were condemned to death, but fortunately 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.880 for conjoined twins Chang and Eng, their sentence was never 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.080 carried out. In fact, they're pos sit of celebrity was 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.480 uncommon in a world where physical differences were often treated 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:09.760 as oddities. The brothers were no social pariahs. By age ten, 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.680 the brothers had entered the workforce. They had lost five 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.520 of their siblings and their father to cholera. With a 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:18.360 purchase of a fishing boats and reputation in the duck 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.680 egg trade, they became quite popular among their neighbors. In 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.440 eighteen twenty four, when they were thirteen years old, the 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.040 boys had gone for a swim. There they caught the 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:31.000 eye of a Scottish merchant named Robert Hunter, who, according 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.040 to his retelling, at first assumed them to be some 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.600 sort of creature. He said, he quickly realized his mistake, 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:41.600 but still considered the potential of their monstrosity again his 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.400 word not mine, and began to think about exhibiting them. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.280 Roberts and an American sea captain named Able Coffin approached 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:52.000 the boys and their mother, Nock, hoping to have her 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.200 sign off on his plans. Robert was also tasked with 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.280 convincing the same King of Siam to give them permission 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.000 to go abroad. The king was excited about the positive 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.800 press the boys would elicit for their small country and 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.920 was eager to establish deeper ties with western developed nations. 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.040 For a thirty month contract with her sons, Roberts and 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.280 Able paid Knock the sum of five dollars. The accounts 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.120 of the transaction vary widely. Were they sold or simply 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.559 entrusted into the men's care. Who did Chang Nang belong 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:28.400 to the market for oriental curiosities was flourishing in the West, 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:32.040 and Chang and Yang's compound ethnic and physical makeup was 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.920 irresistible in the eyes of the showman. Their first stop 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:38.880 in America would be Boston, where they were billed as 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.199 the Siamese Double Boys, and they were an instant sensation. 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.120 Unlike other acts at the time, the boys were not 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.679 taught to do tricks or otherwise perform. Rather, they were 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.079 allowed to conduct themselves as they saw fit, though they 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.559 eventually would take to performing feats of strength. The price 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.240 to see them was high, though, with tickets often selling 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.160 for the modern quivalent of about one dollars. Now. Where 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.439 other sideshow acts were put on stage and seen as 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.720 a spectacle, Chang and Aaning position themselves more like hosts 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:12.760 at a tea party, entertaining and conversing with curious guests 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:17.559 with bits of English, and this hallmark, the one of respectability, 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.200 would prove to be a lifelong pillar of the brother's identities. 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.320 They pursued their own independence outside of their management, aligning 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.600 themselves with society's upper crust who came to see them. Frequently. 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.959 They would entertain doctors and other spectators who addressed the 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.080 question of separation. It was usually the doctors who would 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.760 approach them, but the brothers were also known to seek 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.079 out the Council on their own. Chang and Eng were 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.080 known to fight ferociously from time to time and had 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:49.920 wildly different personalities. By twenty one, they pursued total independence 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.320 and announced that they had fulfilled all contractual obligations that 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.120 had brought them abroad in the first place. Striking out 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.400 on their own, they would finally get into business for themselves. 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.160 They traveled to Europe, they traveled across North America. They 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.680 adopted an American style of dress, save for their long 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:12.080 braided hair. Chang and Ang were already positioning themselves not 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.199 as servants, slaves, or beholden to others, but rather as 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.720 agents in their own right. One thing they could not escape, though, 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.080 was the social order they found themselves in. At the 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.840 end of the day, it would still never be white. 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.520 But by the end of the eighteen thirties, the twins 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.600 began to entertain the idea of retirement. They made their 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.560 way to Wilkes County, North Carolina and purchased one hundred 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:38.239 fifty acres of land. The newly minted U S citizens 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.440 also adopted a new American surname. They would now be 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.880 called Chang and Ang Bunker, they settled into their American identity. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.480 They attended church, opened a local store, and eventually took 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.520 up farming. And what's more, they each married on April 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.800 thirteenth of eighteen forty three, in true American fashion, Chang 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.680 En Ang married the farmers daughters from down the way. 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.400 Chang married Adelaide Yates, and Ang married her sister Sarah 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:08.360 Ann in a proper Baptist church wedding. The papers, of course, 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.880 were all a twitter at what they called a be 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.280 steel union, but within ten months both couples welcomed their 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.280 first child, and over the next three decades, Chang and 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.040 Ang and their respective wives would have a total of 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:24.040 twenty one children. The two families moved into a larger 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:27.520 house and began farming tobacco and several other crops. They 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.680 would eventually build two houses side by side for each 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.880 nuclear family and spend alternating days at each. They became 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:39.480 gifted carpenters, horse breeders, and marksman. Chang and Yang, who 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.120 had once been leased out as human exhibits, purchased dozens 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.080 of enslaved people to maintain their farms. It seems they 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.800 had no limits when it came to amassing the trappings 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.600 of white aristocracy. But their retirement wasn't to last. They 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.480 returned to the stage on and off in the intervening years, 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.080 even passing through P. T. Barnum's American Museum. At one 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.000 point it was said that he was resentful that he 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.439 hadn't been the one to discover them, and that they 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:11.000 found him to be quite stingy and exploitative. They paused 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.560 in eighteen sixty one with the outbreak of the Civil War. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:18.319 Slaveholders and secessionists as they were, they backed the Confederacy, 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.319 suffering many great losses, with the deaths of two daughters 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:25.640 and almost total economic ruin. The pair continued to tour 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.199 the country after the war, but by this time their 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.319 health was beginning to fail, and Chang's drinking, which had 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.760 already been quite heavy, became even worse. It didn't help 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.959 that their appeal as a form of entertainment was also 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.960 beginning to wane. Barnum had evidently offered to send them 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:44.480 on a tour through Europe and offered Chang, and Ang 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.080 took him up on in late eighteen sixty eight. While there, 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.800 they once again consulted with several doctors about the possibility 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.760 of separating them, but were repeatedly told that it would 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:59.120 be much too dangerous. And then, in July of eighteen seventy, 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.160 on their way back from Europe, Chang suffered a stroke 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.480 connected only at the stern um. Chang and Yang's bodies 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.280 seemed to be aging at different rates. Chang's condition would 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.120 never improve, with his brother physically and spiritually shouldering the 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:16.000 weight of their inevitable demise. It said that in the 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.679 last years of their life, they became obsessed with their 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.800 own mortality. They knew their time was coming, cruel and 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.520 dreadful it would be. They thought they have to carry 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:29.760 on with the other's corpse at his side. They didn't 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.240 have to wait long, though. Chang would eventually catch a 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.720 fatal case of bronchitis, and Ang, it said, died of 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.760 fright before doctors could rush in for an emergency separation attempt. 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.560 They both passed away on January of eighteen seventy four 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.160 at the age of sixty two, just a few hours 0:14:48.560 --> 0:15:01.560 apart the train can doctor has never understood why the 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.640 girls only traveled on one ticket, after all, it was 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.920 clear that there were two of them. The girls went 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.880 by the collective hyphenated Millie Christine, and although they fully 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.960 acknowledged their two personhood, they really only had one body, 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.760 so one seat was all they were going to pay 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.360 for a little less than fifteen years after Chang and 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.720 Aang Bunker initially retired. In North Carolina, Millie Christine McCoy 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.560 had been born into slavery the opposite side of the state. 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.320 The girls had two hearts, two sets of lungs and intestines, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.520 two bladders, and were conjoined at the base of the spine. 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.120 But it was only ten months after they were born 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:42.240 that their career began. Their first visit to the North 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:45.920 Carolina State Fair build them as the North Carolina Twins 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.120 and the Double Headed Girl. They were allowed to be 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:53.000 examined by medical men to indeed certify that they weren't 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:57.000 a fraud, that they were well the real McCoy. And 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.880 as horrible as those examinations sound, we know this is 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.840 an expectation that had been long impressed upon side show performers. 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.360 Millie Christine had the compounded problem of being born into 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.760 legal enslavements. At birth, they didn't even belong to themselves. 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:14.880 The question that was on every spectator's mind was the 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.000 same as when folks went to see Chang and hang, 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:21.120 could they be separated? And more perversely, would they be 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.840 able to bear children? And what would the mechanics of 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.320 that even be. The girls were soon sold to a 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.240 fellow by the name of Joseph Pearson Smith, and in 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.520 a rash of business dealings gone awry, they were kidnapped. 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.160 The swindler, it seems, began exhibiting them privately to small 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.480 groups in various cities along the East Coast, during which 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:44.120 time they once again changed many hands, turning up as 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.160 side show acts are wont to do at Barnum's American 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:51.520 Museum in New York City in eighteen fifty four. By 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.400 the summer of eighteen fifty five, Millie Christine ended up 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.280 in Quebec, Canada, in the hands of two showmen, William 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.360 Thompson and William Miller, who claimed to have found Millie 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.000 Christine in Boston. They soon took off to Liverpool, England, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.439 where Miller then stole Millie Christine and headed to London, 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.280 where the twins were examined by more physicians and exhibited 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.920 to the public for a shilling pert ticket. Thompson eventually 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.639 caught up with Miller and took up to court the crime. 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.600 Thompson felt Miller was guilty of stealing his property. However, 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:26.040 slavery was no longer legal in England, but Thompson was 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.000 awarded the closest thing to it, guardianship of Millie Christine. 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.080 Back in the States, where enslavement was in its final 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.359 legal years, Joseph Pearson Smith remember him, was alerted to 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:41.640 their whereabouts. He proceeded to purchase Millie Christine's entire family 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.840 from their original owner. Because he had a plan, Joseph 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.640 traveled to England, bringing Millie Christine's mother, Monemia in tow. 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.680 They caught up with Thompson and the twins in Birmingham 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.800 and January of eighteen thirty seven, and accompanied by a 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.119 group of disguised policemen, the girls were taken away in 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.360 a flurry of draw Mamma. Later, Millie Christine was said 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.440 to have looked back on this as an act of mercy. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.840 They had been separated from their family so young. By 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.919 purchasing the whole family, Joseph made it possible for them 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.399 to be reunited with their parents. I'm a bit skeptical 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.560 of this altruism myself, but even so, this event surely 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.679 was bitter sweet. The girls would go on to live 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.880 at Joseph's home in Spartanburg, Tennessee. So while the rest 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.919 of the family was still enslaved and working on the farm, 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.320 Millie Christine was taught to read, write, and sing. The 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.760 entire family was laboring, but for them the work looked 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:39.520 much different. On stage, Millie Christine was billed as the 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:44.760 two headed Nightingale and homage to Barnum's wealthy, cosmopolitan, wheeling 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.399 and dealing Swedish protege Jenny Lynn. An ad from an 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.120 English newspaper in eighteen seventy one even talked about their 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.600 performance in glowing terms. She sings duets in soprano and 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.400 contralto have voices. The review read, Chicken dances gray facefully 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.679 and with as much enjoyment as any ballroom couple, and 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.960 even when alone, she does not let company, being able 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.359 to carry on a brilliant conversation with herself. It was 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.560 amusing yesterday to notice how in the middle of a polka, 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.440 the two heads inclined to each other, and the two 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:20.560 voices kept chattering away in their inseparable but beyond doubt 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:25.439 joyous companionship. In early November of eighteen sixty two, the 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.080 twins suffered one of the greatest losses of their life. 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.159 Joseph died, and in settling his debts, their family was 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.719 once again sold off. Millie Christine's biography tells us that 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.520 they stayed with his widow and even continued to do 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.159 so after being legally freed. Following the end of the 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.320 American Civil War, they were legally emancipated, but still they 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.560 continued to exhibit, according to them, for the purpose of 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.520 helping the widow Smith with bills and expenses that were 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:56.080 left to her by her late husband. However, recently discovered 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.199 letters in the National Archive tell a different story that 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.280 Mrs Smith fused them their freedom and even kept them 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.080 hidden from their parents. The letters document an argument between 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.960 Mrs Smith and Monemia, forcing their mother's hand in signing 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.639 over custody of the twins. In a powerful turn of events, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:16.920 though Millie Christine, who were young women by this point, 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.520 eventually claimed their earnings and their freedom. They made their 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.080 way together with their parents and brother to Welsh's Creek, 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.320 North Carolina, and there they bought and reclaimed the land 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.080 their parents had once worked while enslaved. They would continue 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.320 to exhibit in various cities in the Greater Area, evidently 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.359 still in collaboration with Mrs Smith. Much of what we 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.200 know about Millie Christine comes from the memoirs they wrote 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.440 in eighteen sixty nine, when they were just seventeen years old. 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.520 Copies of it were sold at their performances for the 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.960 equivalent of about five dollars. Today, some scholars have raised 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.480 serious doubts as to whether the twins indeed are the 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.480 authors of their history, and suspect that at the very 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.960 least their former owners had considerable control over the material, 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.280 or perhaps were even the true writers. Yet it would 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:07.240 be unfair to Milly Christine to entirely discount these materials 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.200 and assume they were wholly powerless. In the fall of 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.320 eighty three, they headed back to their family. They spent 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.919 months decorating their fourteen room home and even built extra 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.120 wide doorways for themselves. They would tour off and on 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:24.960 until Milly came down with tuberculosis in nineteen twelve. Their 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.399 attending doctor was advised to not try to separate the twins, 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.760 but rather to simply provide comforts. He left a message 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:36.879 for the governor asking for permission to euthanize Christine. Milly 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.960 died on October eight of nineteen twelve. Christine stayed alive 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.159 for less than a day longer praying and singing hymns. 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.359 The governor finally granted the doctor permission, and Christine was 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.520 delivered a lethal dose of morphine to hasten her own death. 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:56.320 Neither of them had wanted to ever be without the other. 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:01.240 They could never dream of it, and now they never 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:11.840 would be. Both in their own time and in the 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.080 decades that followed, Chang and Yang and Millie Christine were 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.320 often compared to each other. Indeed, they were operating in 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.560 the world of side shows and standalone exhibits at around 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.040 the same time, and according to at least one source, 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:27.720 the two pairs may have even briefly exhibited alongside each other. 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:30.560 But in many ways, there seems to be more that 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.520 set Chang and Yang and Millie Christine apart than held 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.040 them together. Chang and Ang were quite independent from one another, 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:40.360 even having their own families who lived in separate homes 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.239 side by side. They fought with one another, They had 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:47.920 dramatically different personalities. They explored the possibility of separation at 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.119 many points, even if it was declared too dangerous to 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.679 be done. Milly Christine, on the other hand, while becoming 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:59.040 highly independent, collectively, were nonetheless so close with one another 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:01.720 that they spoke of them selves in the singular They 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:05.080 never seem to have entertained the idea of being separated. 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:09.480 The difference between the two can likewise be seen rather dramatically, 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:13.640 and the events which unfolded after each had died. Following 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.600 their deaths, Chang and Yang's respective widows initially did what 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:18.960 any person would do with the death of their loved one. 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.600 The family assembled and paid final respects. They had a 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.320 local clergyman come and perform last rites. They also objected 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.040 to allowing an autopsy to be performed on the two men, 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:33.160 and wanted to bury the twins in the cellar. Their 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.000 local physician convinced them to allow him to preserve the 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:38.680 bodies in charcoal so that they may continue to keep 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:41.840 them in the house. A doctor from Philadelphia felt the 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:45.359 twins owed their autopsy to science after a lifetime of 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.560 the best medical care available. In the end, the widows 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:52.000 finally agreed, but wouldn't allow for their connective band to 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:55.280 be dissected. The body was brought to Philadelphia to be 0:23:55.359 --> 0:24:00.199 examined in great secrecy, much to the newspapers chagrin. Some 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:03.720 of Changan Yang's and trails, namely their joined liver, are 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:06.760 still kept at the Mooder Museum, and later doctors and 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:10.399 researchers continued to examine their organs even into the nineteen 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:13.960 sixties and seventies. Oh and the same museum has a 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:17.840 plaster cast made of the twins following their autopsy. In 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:22.200