Biographical sketch of Millie Christine, the Carolina Twin : $b Surnamed the Two-headed Nightingale and the Eighth Wonder of the World — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Biographical sketch of Millie Christine, the Carolina Twin : $b Surnamed the Two-headed Nightingale and the Eighth Wonder of the World
John Stuart Mill · en
Only one is on record, attested as a fact, and leaving out of the
question fabulous monsters. The first year of the eighteenth century
witnessed the birth of a similar phenomenon in Hungary, the sisters
Helen and Judith, born in the year 1701. These girls were united at
the lower part of the body only, and were perfectly distinct beings in
every way. Helen was larger, stronger, and better-looking than Judith,
besides being much more active and intelligent. These girls lived
to their twenty-second year, when Judith fell sick and died, Helen
following her within a few minutes of her demise. And all this, you
remember happened more than a century since, so that it takes Nature a
hundred years at least to produce such a marvel again. Helen and Judith
died at twenty-two years of age, while Millie Christine still lives,
healthy and happy, at thirty-eight, and bids fair to attain a ripe old
age as easily as less wonderful beings. The following pages, confined
to a simple record of the facts in her career, will therefore prove of
interest and value.
Miss Millie Christine, or Christine Millie, was born of slave parents,
on the plantation of Mr. Alexander McCoy, near the town of Whiteville,
Columbus County, North Carolina, on July 11, 1851. At her birth her
mother was in her thirty-second year. She was a handsome woman, finely
formed and in excellent health. Millie Christine’s father, of Moorish
descent, slender and sinewy, with the powerful activity characteristic
of his race. Prior to the birth of Millie Christine, her mother had
borne seven other children, five boys and two girls, all of ordinary
size, with no peculiarities of conformation, and some of them are still
alive.
The wonder of the family, Millie Christine, weighed seventeen pounds
when she entered the world, and, although her mother was only attended
by a colored midwife, no serious consequences attended such a
remarkable birth.
But, when the child was once fairly in the world, how rumor flew about
the township of Whiteville, and spread from thence over the whole
country! “Have you seen the girl?” was the first question asked of
every one by every one, and pilgrimages to visit her became all the
rage in the country side.
The old nurse who had superintended her introduction into this world
was doubtless awestruck at the anomalous and wonderful addition she had
made to her master’s property, and not unnaturally prided herself on
having assisted Nature to produce a phenomenon; but the master himself,
and his amiable lady, without stopping to question the designs of
Providence, immediately surrounded the extraordinary infant with such
care and attention as enabled it to thrive and grow. The dual-headed
child was taken from the cabin to the mansion, and Mr. McCoy’s family
commenced then a course of care and attention to her health and welfare.