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MILLIE-CHRISTINE – The Two-Headed Nightingale
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Millie and Christine were born into slavery on July 11, 1851 in the town of Welches Creek, North Carolina. The girls were joined at the spine and their owner, a blacksmith named Jabez McKay, was not sure what to do with the girls. Their parents, Monimia and Jacob, had previously sired seven children but clearly the twins would be of little use to McKay due to their bizarre appearance and sickly constitution. Eventually McKay opted to sell the eight-month-old girls and their mother to Carolinian showman John Pervis for $1000.
Pervis began exhibiting Millie and Christine immediately but within four years the girls were sold to showmen Joseph Pearson Smith and Brower and then kidnapped. The kidnappers exhibited the twins privately, mostly to members of the medical community, for over three years while Smith and Brower frantically searched for their investment. They eventually located Millie and Christine while they were on exhibit in Birmingham, England. The law became involved in the situation and, as slavery was illegal in England, the girls were released into the custody of their mother. She, however, had no idea how to proceed with the girls in a foreign country and as a result she gave custody and ‘ownership’ back to Smith.
While Smith continued to exhibit Mille and Christine, he found the public was not very interested. At the time, the anatomical novelty of conjoined twins simply was not enough to capture public attention. Smith decided to develop Millie and Christine as a performing act. Furthermore, he endeavoured to make the girls as extraordinary in skill as they were in appearance. To that end, he and his wife tutored the girls in music and languages. Millie and Christine were taught etiquette, social graces and were given music lessons. It came to pass that the girls developed impressive singing abilities and their singing prowess soon became the focal point of their careers.
As ‘The Two-Headed Nightingale’ the conjoined girls started to gain a remarkable reputation. While Millie was a contralto and Christine a soprano, the girls were able to blend and harmonize their voices in incredibly appealing ways. By 1860, Millie and Christine were on the cusp of stardom.
In 1862 Smith died. The girls were willed to his son Joseph Jr. and it was Joseph who catapulted the girls to stardom by using a clever bit of showmanship.
Throughout much of their life, Millie and Christine were often considered one person. Due to their shared body, it was often unclear if the girls were legally and physically a single being or individuals. The girls themselves often referred to themselves in the singular, using ‘I’ in the place of ‘we’. Joseph Jr. saw opportunity in this confusion and opted to advertise the girls from a new perspective.
The girls became Millie-Christine, a girl with two heads, four arms and four legs.
The concept of such an incredible phenomenon drew immediate crowds and Millie-Christine enjoyed immediate and world-wide popularity. Furthermore, it was the singing of ‘The Two-Headed Nightingale’ that quickly gained predominance over appearance and Millie-Christine eventually performed for European royalty, including the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria. Mille-Christine became renowned for singing, playing the guitar and piano in unison and dancing the waltz in front of thousands of people in the greatest halls and venues of the world.
Soon, the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect and Millie-Christine was free. During the course of her career, Millie-Christine earned more than $250,000.
Millie-Christine preformed until the age of fifty-eight. Once retired, Millie-Christine became Millie and Christine once again. The sisters built a home in Columbus, North Carolina where they lived quietly until their passing on October 8, 1912. Millie went first, succumbing to tuberculosis, and her sister followed seventeen hours later.
They were sixty-one, the oldest conjoined twins on record.
To learn more about Millie-Christine purchase Millie-Christine : Fearfully And Wonderfully Made by Joanne Martell.
© 2008 – 2012, J Tithonus Pednaud. All rights reserved.
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American Sideshow: An Encyclopedia
Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
Sideshow U.S.A.: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination
Freaks, Geeks, and Strange Girls
Pickled Punks & Girlie Shows: A Life Spent on the Midways of America
The Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins
The Circus Age: Culture and Society under the American Big Top
Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body
James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed: On & Off the Midway
THE AUTHOR
J Tithonus Pednaud has dedicated this site to highlighting the remarkable lives of those born exceedingly different. These so-called freaks and human oddities stand as uplifting testaments to human spirit and serve as inspiring examples of human tenacity.
14 Responses to “MILLIE-CHRISTINE – The Two-Headed Nightingale”
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this is truly fascinating.
That must be horrifying to have your other half die of a terrible disease & you’re still alive… This was an amazing read, what a remarkable time period.
i agree with bailee. i found myself wondering what would happen in that situation before the end of the article. what if one dies? do they both die? if not… what do you do? carry around half of yourself dead? that’s just fascinating… and horrifying.
@jenna: what do you do? carry around half of yourself dead?
they weren’t the same person. they were 2 different people, joined at the back. it’s a condition that some people are born with. people like that are often reffered to as “siamese twins” or “conjoined twins” although there are different forms of siamese twins besides being joined at the back.
When one goes, the other shortly follows as one heart can only pump so much and often blood. Often a stroke takes the second as blood from the second body begins to congeal and clot or otherwise poison the body.
Generally, both will pass within hours of each other.
As for conjoined twins being two people. Legally, the often aren’t considered as such.
It sounds horrible to think of their own selves as one single person. It wasn’t an extra head or anything, they both had fully-grown bodies and organs. It was only the spine joining them together, wasn’t it?
I also thought of the idea of one of them dying first, it trully seemed terrifying, but still kind of weird.
I have heard so much about these girls and would love to learn more about my cousins….this was an interesting thing to read
That’s depressing…not only is your twin dead, right next to you, but then you have to sit there, looking at her…knowing you have mere hours left…
UAU! Fascinante, mas assustador é o fato de uma metade morrer e a outra permanecer viva. Se Christine não tivesse falecido 17 horas depois, carregaria o corpo de sua irmã pelo resto da vida? no mínimo, estranho. =0
It seems depressing to be sitting next to the person you’ve spent every moment of your life together and see her dead. Knowing that you’re next. It must have been a very painful final moments. Just imagining it makes me scared.
the poor thing, waiting 17 hours while her dead twin lay right next to her.