Eng and Change Bunker the original “Siamese Twins”

We have been saving the best for last. This is a remarkable story, so hang with me here! Make sure to read to the bottom to find out how this relates to the Mayberry Campground, where we are staying.

We saw all of the signs named “Eng and Chang”. There’s a Memorial Bridge, there are also streets named Eng and Chang and other memorabilia around town. I looked up the name “Eng and Chang Bunker” and realized that they are the original conjoined twins, and this was the origination for the term “Siamese Twins”. The very same day I looked them up, I was talking to my friend Teresa Nauman and out of the blue she mentioned a podcast that she and her husband had listened to about the twins and Mount Airy. It’s a a Mobituaries podcast titled “Change and Eng: A Messy American Dream”. So we listened to it and became enlightened at the history that’s here in Mount Airy. I’ve taken some information from Wikipedia, ncpedia and the podcast below. In the bottom of the Andy Griffith Museum there’s a portion dedicated to Eng and Chang. I will say that they are highly celebrated in Thailand still today.

Chang and Eng Bunker (May 11, 1811 – January 17, 1874). They were from Meklong, Siam, which is now Thailand. A Scottish merchant saw them splashing around in the water and thought it was an animal and then he saw the conjoined twins. He took them away from their family (which they never saw again) and toured them around Europe and America.

Eng and Chang were Siamese-American conjoined twin brothers whose fame propelled the expression “Siamese twins” to become synonymous for conjoined twins in general. They were widely exhibited as curiosities and were “two of the nineteenth century’s most studied human beings”.

The brothers were born with Chinese ancestry in today’s Thailand and were brought to the United States in 1829. Physicians inspected them as they became known to American and European audiences in “freak shows”. Newspapers and the public were initially sympathetic to them, and within three years they left the control of their managers, who they thought were cheating them, and toured on their own.
In 1839, after a decade of financial success, the twins quit touring and settled near Mount Airy, North Carolina. They became American citizens, chose the last name “Bunker”, married local sisters, bought slaves, and fathered 21 children between the two of them. Chang’s and Eng’s respective families lived in separate houses, where the twins took alternating three-day stays. They would say that one brother would go into a meditative state while the other brother had “relations” with his wife. After the Civil War, they lost part of their wealth and their slaves. They had to go back on tour to regain their wealth, so they toured Europe with Barnum. Some of their children actually went with them. Chang had become distressed and drank too much and was losing his health. The story says that they became irritable toward each other. No doctor would separate them or even touch them for that matter and that was a goal they had in life. On the voyage home from Europe across the Atlantic, Chang suffered a stroke and partial paralysis. He only recovered in part, however his health began to decline. After returning home, on Jan. 12, 1874 Chang was stricken with bronchitis. On the morning of Jan. 17th, 1874 at 62 years old, he died in his sleep. There was nothing originally wrong with his brother Eng, however he awoke to find his brother deceased and a doctor was summoned to separate them. The doctor didn’t arrive in time and Eng passed with his family by his side.

Information obtained from ncpedia states: An autopsy conducted in Philadelphia led doctors to conclude that while Chang had died of a cerebral clot brought on by the previous stroke, complicated by pneumonia, Eng had actually died of fright. A partial examination of the connecting band, limited by the family’s wish that it not be cut from the front, revealed that their lives were connected by a “quite distinct extra hepatic tract” and that an artery and some nerve connections ran between them; thus, Eng may have suffered from loss of blood from Chang’s dying body. I just cannot imagine what he might have been going through having watched his brother, whom he had been attached to his whole life pass before him and know he was about to die.

So, this brings me to another bit of history. We are staying at the Mayberry Campground. We had been here a week and a half when we realized the history of the campground.

Taken from the Mayberry RV Park Website:
Mayberry Campground is a privately owned RV park located in the small town of Mt. Airy, NC which is often referred to as Mayberry. The land the campground is built on was once part of a 2,000 acre farm owned by the original Siamese twins, Eng and Chang Bunker. The twins and their wives, Sarah (Eng) and Adelaide (Chang), settled in Mt. Airy, NC. Eng and Chang each had their own home and would stay at one residence for three nights, then go to the other residence for three nights. Eng and Sara had 11 children while Chang and Adelaide had 10. The twins were never separated and died on January 17, 1874 at the age of 62.
Within the campground property there is a white farmhouse (pictured left) that was built by Eng’s son, William Bunker in 1900. Occasional tours are offered to groups interested in viewing the old home place. The campground owner, Benny East, is the great-great grandson of Eng. His mother, Ruby Bunker East, was born and raised in the farmhouse along with her 5 sisters. Kali Boles, the campground manager, is a great-great-great granddaughter of Eng. We have been dealing with Kali the entire time that we have been here and had no clue that she was a descendant of Eng Bunker.

Eng and Chang are also buried in the church right behind the campground. I have put some pictures of the twins and their wives and family below. I also included their burial site which we visited today.

Around the campground. This is the old farmhouse that’s on the campground property. It was built in 1900 by Eng’s son, William Bunker. We are also stayin gon Eng & Chang Way.