Famous Colored
Twins, Born in Columbus County,
and Exhibited All Over the World, Pass Away At Their Home
Wilmington Star, 10th - Word was received here yesterday afternoon that
Millie, one of the celebrated Millie-Christine twins all over the
world, had died at the home of the pair near Whiteville, Columbus
county and last night a message was received stating that Christine
died at 1:30 o'clock in the afternoon, some hours after the death
of the other. The twins were about 60 years old.
Born in Columbus county in slavery times, the women, who were colored,
were sold in their youth for $40,000 for exhibition purposes.
While being shown in Philadelphia, a few years after their sale, they
were stolen and nothing was heard of them by their owner for several
years. Finally he located them in London and regained possession
of them. He again placed them on exhibition and they appeared
before many of the crowned heads of Europe as well as being exhibited
throughout the old country ad America. They were seen in
Wilmington the last time with a carnival a year or two ago.
Millie-Christine had two heads and two sets of lower extremities but
only one body. What one disliked the other disliked, the same
thing made each sick, but they had their differences and we know
to have quarreled with themselves.
They were the wonder of physicians, anatomists and biologists
everywhere. On the stage they sang in chorus and danced.
One head carried on a conversation with one person while the other
carried on a different conversation with someone else. One could
sing one thing and the other something else, yet they were so
completely one person that one could not perform any function without
the other.
Millie-Christine was a puzzle. In many aspects they were one
personality, and in others they were two. They really appeared to
be one person with two heads. A pain gave the other a pain.
It was a repetition of the end of the Siamese twins who died in North
Carolina, at their home near Mt. Airy, one died while the other was
asleep. When the live one was awaked and informed that the other was
died he expired in a few minutes. Only a ligament at the
side connected them, where were otherwise two perfectly formed men who
had violent difference at time. Both of the Siamese twin were married
and left families in Surry county, North Carolina.
Millie-Christine was a more wonderful being that the famous Siamese
twins. They apparently had but one body but evidently there were
two. Each person, if they were two of them, had two hands and two legs
and two feet; and yet, anatomically, she or they had only one body as
far as close observations were concerned.
Te women were reported to have been very wealthy.