The Bunker Brothers
Like thousands of their defeated countrymen, the Bunker brothers of Surry County, North Carolina, were broke at the end of the Civil War. Their homes and land were unscathed, but with their slaves emancipated and Confederate currency worthless, they desperately needed money to hire field hands and pay property taxes. Although in their fifties, the brothers decided to return to the occupation of their youth, one in which they would have no competition.
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The Bunkers were not simply brothers. They were twins, and special ones at that. They were Chang and Eng, the famed conjoined siblings known as the Siamese Twins. Born in Siam– now Thailand– in 1811, the boys caught the attention of Robert Hunter, a Scottish businessman, when they were seventeen. He, working with a promoter, secured permission from their mother to take them on tour.
Chang and Eng became world travelers, land owners, and family men.
Originally treated as a freak show attraction, Chang and Eng, who spoke no English, were presented as an Asian oddity. Over time, the learned to speak English and became aware their promoters were paying them poorly. At age twenty, they decided to handle their own business affairs and made their public appearances more dignified. Clad in custom-made suits, they sat in parlor-like settings, spoke on a variety of subjects, and appeared throughout the United States and in parts of Europe. They earned enough money to tour less frequently and spent time hunting and fishing on property they purchased in North Carolina.
In April 1843, Chang and Eng became naturalized United States citizens and adopted the surname Bunker. Later, they married sisters, built separate homes, and eventually fathered 21 children between them. Supporting their growing families necessitated intermittent touring, usually with a few children in tow.
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In order to save their homes, the Bunkers opted to go on the road again. But which road? Touring the impoverished South was not an option, and Northerners were cool to former slave owners whose sons had fought in the rebel army. Europeans were more receptive, and the Bunkers, accompanied by two adult daughters, appeared in England and Scotland in 1868-69. Two sons joined the twins on a tour of Germany and Russia in 1870.
Chang suffered a stroke on the return trip to America, sending the Bunker brothers into permanent retirement. However, their post-war tours had been successful. According to Joseph Andrew Orser, author of The Lives of Chang and Eng: Siam’s Twins in Nineteenth Century America, “The Bunker estate in 1870 was worth $30,000 . . . equivalent to $606,533 in 2019 . . . .”