Mayberry, NC (Really Mt. Airy, NC) Hometown of Andy Griffith

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Went to Mayberry with Joy Club of Croft Baptist Church (Mom's church)

We ate lunch at Snappy's Lunch. The pork chop sandwich is the #1 thing on the menu. It is next to Floyd's barbershop on Main St.

  

We also went to The Siamese Twins Exhibit that is located on the lower level of the Andy Griffith Playhouse.

Eng and Chang were Born in the village of Samutsongkram, Siam (now Thailand) on May 11, 1811.

Eng and Chang Bunker were connected at the chest by a cartilaginous band of flesh. The twins shared relatively normal boyhoods in Siam, running and playing with other children and helping to support their family by gathering and selling duck eggs in their village.

On April 1, 1829, the twins left Siam and began a career traveling with two agents, Robert Hunter, a British merchant, and Abel Coffin, an American sea captain.

Eng and Chang earned money by making appearances throughout the US, Canada, South America, and Europe. In their far-flung travels, Eng and Chang became such popular celebrities during the 1830s that their promotion as "Siamese Twins" were terms that be came synonymous with connected or conjoined twins.

In 1832, they fulfilled their contracts and declared their independence from their agents.

By the late 1830s, Eng and Chang tired of all their traveling and opted to settle in North Carolina. There, the brothers married sisters, Adelaide and Sarah Yates. The sisters were the daughters of Nancy and David Yates, Quakers from Wilkes County. The couples were married on April 13, 1843 and produced 22 children between the two families.

They moved to White Plains, just west of Mount Airy, in 1845. They were successful farmers and good citizens. They split their time between the two families with a rigidly followed system of three days in one house followed by three days in the other with each being the master in his home. They observed this without exception until they died on January 17, 1874, at the age of 62.

They are buried at White Plains Baptist Church. On the way to their gravesite, you will cross the Eng and Chang Bunker Bridge that is over Stewarts Creek, the body of water that separated Eng's land from Chang's land. The church is built on property that once belonged to the Twins and they helped to build it!