My First Spring Robin

At least someone is using the birdbath:

Guess it is really and truly spring now.

For Japan With Love

I'm joining with other bloggers for the Bloggers Day of Silence for the people of Japan. I have sent a contribution to Japan SPCA through Global Animal. Please consider donating to a charity of your choice.

Magnolias at the Greensboro Arboretum

While I was at the Greensboro Arboretum Sunday, I took these pictures of the flowering magnolias:

This is "Leonard Messel" from the United States.

This is "Royal Star" from Japan.


And some surprising information about magnolias:

The magnolia family is very ancient with fossil remains dating between 36 and 58 million years ago. The unusual distribution of existing magnolia species resulted when Ice Age glaciers destroyed ancient European forests but not those in Asia or America.

Surviving magnolia species represent some of the more primitive flowering plants. Magnolia flowers do not have true petals and sepals but are composed of petal-like tepals. Flowers do not produce true nectar, but attract pollinating beetles with fragrant, sugary secretions. Magnolia flowers are primarily pollinated by beetles of the Nitidulidae family because magnolias evolved long before bees and other flying pollinators.

Magnolias were well known and widely used by ancient cultures in Asia and the Americas. The beautiful flowering tree,Magnolia denudata, was known as "Yu-lan" ("Jade Orchid") to the ancient Chinese and has been cultivated since the 7th century. The Japanese have grown Magnolia stellata for centuries as flowering pot plants called "Shidekobushi" ("Zigzag-petalled Kobushi Magnolia"). The Aztecs knew Magnolia macrophylla var. dealbata as "Eloxochitl" ("Flower with Green Husk").

Europeans were not familiar with magnolias and they first discovered them while exploring the Americas. In 1688, Sweet Bay (Magnolia virginiana) was the first magnolia introduced to Europe. Unaware of Amerindian or Asian names for the species, 18th century taxonomists named magnolias to commemorate Pierre Magnol, a 17th century French botanist.

Daylily Murderer

Last year I planted more than 70 daylily fans in my small garden. Some bloomed last summer and some decided that they would just wait until this year before they bloomed.

For some reason I have a large circular area that doesn't have any green shoots poking up through the leaf litter.

I wonder if he has anything to do with the missing daylilies.

I wonder what that is in his tiny little paws. Daylily fans, perhaps?

I went out and bought 20 more daylily fans from Home Depot that I will plant in the bare areas and when it finally looks like the weather will stay warmish, head out for some of the daylily nurseries nearby and buy something that isn't a Stella del Oro.

For Japan

The Japanese Cherry trees are blossoming at the Greensboro Arboretum this week.

I wanted to post this in memory of all those who have been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Sunset Sunday

I took this Thursday evening after the huge storm that brought flooding to the Northeast left Greensboro. We were spared the massive amounts of rain that hit New Jersey and New York, getting only a little more than an inch and a half. Great for all the daylilies that are starting to peek up in the small garden.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Finding Another View. I'm doing this with Anyes at Far away in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.

February Full Moon

I took this the middle of February during the last full moon.

I see the next full moon is on March 19th, the next weekend. Wonder if I can get a similar snapshot?

I'm feeling better (still a little cough, but nothing like the last couple weeks), so I'm going to go to some of the city gardens this weekend (TB has other plans, so no day trip) and see what has started to bloom that would be interesting.

The birds have also started to migrate back from Central and South America (not the hummingbirds; they will come later in the spring) and I'll try to take some photographs if I can. The bird feeders are out of the small garden, but robins come looking for worms under the leaf litter. I think they are deserving of being photographed, too.

Blenko Bottle

And a picture of a bottle for the photography class.

I used to collect Blenko glass until it became discovered by the shelter magazines as the thing to collect for those who were into mid-century houses, furniture and accessories. Then everyone went over to eBay and started bidding Blenko into nose-bleed territory. Plus my collection had started to take over every flat surface in the house and it was starting to look more like a Betsey Johnson interior (although pink is not my thing).

Most of the glass has been put up with the exception of some of the better and larger pieces. This bottle (or decanter) was blown in the early 1960's and stands about two and a half feet tall. I was really fortunate to find it in an antique store here in Greensboro where the word hadn't filtered down that it needed to be priced higher than the $45 I paid for it (it should have been priced around $400 or ten times as much). It now sits with four other large Blenko pieces in front of my sliding glass door.

Truths for Mature Humans

I have no new snapshots to post. Being sick for more than two weeks has severely impacted my desire to go out and take pictures.

But a friend (thank you, Leigh!) sent this list to me a while back and now is the time to share this:

Truths For Mature Humans 1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die. 2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong. 3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger. 4. There is great need for a sarcasm font. 5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet? 6. Was learning cursive really necessary? 7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood. 8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died. 9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired. 10. Bad decisions make good stories. 11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day. 12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again. 13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to. 14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call. 15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well. 16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.  18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger. 19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said? 20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters! 21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever. 22. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is. 23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time! 24. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important. (Ladies.....Quit Laughing).

Yes, I know there is no # 17- it was deleted

My Ring

Since I am a newish photographer, I wanted to take advantage of the creative photography class offered at our local community college that was being offered this month. Our first assignment was to take four photographs; one of a bottle, the second of a ring, the third of something lazy (with three cats, that would be easy) and the last of something wrapped around something else.

Here is the one I took for the class of my ring. A little background on this. I found it offered on eBay some years back. The account for the auction was that the front piece, the one with the entwined hearts, is modeled after a wrought-iron screen in some English church (I think that is how the description went). Whatever is the true background on the ring, I wear it daily and enjoy it for its uniqueness.

A Day Late

A day late and a dollar short. Sunset over Lake Townsend, the largest of our city reservoirs.

I am still sick with whatever this thing is - cold, crud, bronchitis (but not the flu; no fever). So I'm sorry for the paucity of snapshots and posts. It is hard to drag yourself out of bed when you just feel lousy.

He Who Knocks

The old doorknob and lock at Evergreen Academy, right across the street from the Amos Hinshaw barn (and written about in an earlier post), brought to mind this morning the verse from Matthew 7:7:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

Amos Hinshaw Barn. Randolph County, NC

Here is an unusual barn for North Carolina, not far from the NC Zoo.

A little background on how this barn came to be here in the rural area of the Piedmont of North Carolina:

During the Civil War, Thomas Hinshaw and his brother Jacob, and their brothers-in-law Cyrus and Nathan Barker, had all decided that the right thing for them to do as Quakers, given the war going on around them, was to simply stay at home, quietly carrying on their everyday work until forcedly conscripted into the Confederate Army.  Confederate soldiers came and tied them to gun carts and took them to the "Militia camp" near Buffalo Ford. The Confederate enlistment rolls show Thomas, age 31, and brother Jacob, age 28, were "enlisted" (forcedly) on Nov 3 1862 as privates in Company G, 52nd North Carolina Infantry. They were captured by Union forces at Gettysburg and transported to a farm in Indiana.

When Mary Hinshaw, Thomas' wife, and her cousin Elizabeth learned that their husbands were alive and in Indiana, they loaded some provisions and their four children, including Thomas's son, Amos, into a covered wagon and headed westward six hundred miles across the mountains in the early fall of 1864. 

The Indiana barns that influenced Amos were built by Swiss immigrants and had a wagon ramp leading to the second floor. This allowed hay wagons to drive in and deliver the hay to the storage area rather than the normal custom of hauling hay bales up to the second floor by block and tackle or, with families with strong-armed sons, throwing them up to be caught and stacked.

It no longer is a working barn or a working farm for that matter. But it does make for an interesting snapshot.

Signs of Spring

The daylilies have started to come up. That's it. I don't have any spring bulbs planted as I  decided just last year to plant daylilies in the small garden. Prior to that, the garden was just wood mulch with a forest pansy redbud and a crepe myrtle tree (var. "Sioux").

Not knowing what they would look like this year, I just decided to leave the garden as is for this spring to see how much the daylilies would spread. I bought and planted more than 60 daylilies as a start. I'll fill in as I go along this year.

They were all lost tags from a nursery in Indiana, so I don't even know what to expect this year. I would say be prepared for a mishmash of flowers.

Mills Long Gone

If you take a look at a map of Guilford County (where Greensboro lies), you'll see a lot of roads with Mill as part of their names. Just off the top of my head, there is Freeman Mill Road, McKnight Mill Road, Branson Mill Road, Price Mill Road, Davis Mill and so forth and so on. These all got their names way back when there were grist mills near every small farming community.

All these grist mills are gone, but the names still remain on downtown roads and obscure county roads. On our day trip which took us down to the NC Zoo, we took a detour over to Kidds Mill Road near Franklinville about thirty miles south of Greensboro. Here, too, at one time was a local grist mill, but the building  itself is long gone. However, still standing is the original stone dam that created the pond for the departed mill race:

And a close up of the hand-placed stones:

And a half buried millstone, the only item still remaining from when it was the center of this small farming community:

Old Barn and Bed Frames

I am taking a couple of days off from posting. The cold that started circulating through the office a couple of weeks ago has finally caught up with me. I'm feeling as old and as decrepit as these bed frames.

I'll be back shortly.

Willy, the Polar Bear

And yet on the other hand, here is an animal that is much better off being here at the NC Zoo.

Wilhelm, or as he is called now, Willy, was among six polar bears confiscated from a Mexico-based circus who abandoned them and their trainer in Puerto Rico in 2001. He spent most of his time in a seven by eight-foot cage. Rarely did he and the other bears have access to water to swim in. Their diet consisted mostly of apples, carrots, lettuce and bread.The temperatures soared to above 100 degrees and there was no air conditioning.

Willy and Masha (who died in 2007 from old age and complications from his life with the circus) came to North Carolina while other bears went to the Detroit Zoo and the Port Defiance Zoo in Tacoma, Washington. Since Willy is more than twenty years old, it is doubtful that the zoo will try to introduce another polar bear into his enclosure.

You can't see it in this picture, but he was swimming around with an orange traffic cone in his paw. What a change from how he looked when he was with the Suarez Circus. I won't link to those pictures; too gruesome. But they are findable if you want to Google it.

Puma Concolor

But before TB and I went looking for old barns, old dams and wild violets, we went to the North Carolina Zoo early Sunday morning thinking we would beat the crowds who surely were still at church.

Not.

Faced with a huge crowd of families, mostly pushing those humongous strollers, we opted to do just the North American exhibits and leave the Africa area for a later trip back. I am not very good with crowds. Mostly they annoy me no end and TB knows I have a very small limit of goodwill.

In front of us going towards the cougar exhibit were two teenagers talking about how cool it would be to throw rocks at the animals (no danger of that actually happening. The zoo has barriers high enough to forestall any attempt at vandalism). I felt like hissing in their ears, "How about you just stand there and let me throw rocks at you so that you can see how cool that is." But discretion being the better point of valor, I contained myself. Besides, TB has no sense of humor when I embarrass her over things like that.

The cougars (there are two) weren't interested in the crowds surrounding their enclosures. Or maybe for them it's "been there, done that".

I am of two minds over zoos. On one hand, I hate seeing wild animals on display just for our amusement, but on the other hand, for the Eastern Cougar since there are less than 50 still in the wild, mostly in Florida, this is their only chance for conservation.

Wild Violets

I am quite envious of my English and Scottish blogger friends who are enjoying great swaths of snowdrops, a plant I've seen in catalogs but never seen in local plantings. Great swaths of daffodils, yes, but never snowdrops.

So I go out with an eagle eye towards anything blooming in this warmish end of winter. Up until this afternoon, I've seen green shoots poking up through the ground (i.e., the daylilies in my small garden), but no flowers.

Until this afternoon during a day's delayed day trip with TB (I had a hair appointment yesterday; got to keep those roots under control). Tons and tons of wild violets at a couple of locations that we stopped at to get some snapshots of old barns and old dams.

Not swaths of snowdrops, but the best I could do here in North Carolina.  Unfortunately most people view wild violets as a noxious weed to be eradicated out of lawns. I see it as an early harbinger of spring. I will start looking closer to see what other wildflowers are lurking underfoot.

Sunset Sunday

I pulled off on an overpass to take this snapshot Saturday evening. I put my emergency blinkers on to make sure no one hit me, but had several people slow down probably thinking the car had broken down (an 18-year old minivan with 200 thousand miles? Why would they think that?), but once they saw me taking pictures, they just waved and drove off.


You can find Sunset Sundays over at Finding Another View. I'm doing this with Anyes at Far away in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

A last look at the yellow-rumped warblers. They stopped coming to the feeder after the holly tree across the parking lot started dropping its berries. And they leave soon to migrate all the way up through to the Arctic Circle in Canada.

And I only get to see them in their winter drab. Look at what they look like in the summer:

From Cornell University's All About Birds

I took down all but two feeders today after I saw the daylilies starting to send up shoots through the leaf litter. Although bird poop is good for the plants, I don't like gardening among a lot of poop. Yuck.

Spring is coming.

European Starling

They're baaaack . . .

And as you can see, the white tips on his feathers are starting to wear away. By late spring, they will be an iridescent brown.

I'll start taking the feeders down the beginning of March in order to clean up the small garden. I'll have to replant some daylilies which were dug up by the chipmunks (which is why I keep tamping down their holes). The juncos are coming less frequently as they get ready to migrate back to the northern forests of Canada. The yellow-rumped warblers have decamped for the holly tree across the parking lot, but they too will leave in March for Canada. I still get all the other little birds, but I need to wean them so they aren't dependent on me during breeding season. I will set up hummingbird feeders; let's see if I can get any decent snapshots this summer.

Blue Ridge Parkway

Since I didn't do a road trip this past weekend, I am going through old snapshots to find something interesting to post. This one was taken in October 2009 with the Panasonic TMZ-1 (a refurbished 5MP camera) and shows the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina. They were named this due to the hazy blue hue given off by the evergreens that grow extensively throughout these ridges. I didn't do anything to the color of this snapshot; this shows it exactly how it looks normally.

This was taken from the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Mount Airy looking south and east. Here is an article from the Smithsonian Magazine which tells how the Parkway came into being 75 years ago. It is definitely one of most favorite places to go to, especially since it is just two hours away from Greensboro.

The Chipmunk is Back

Well, look who's back. Despite me tamping down his holes in my small garden, this little chipmunk isn't detered where bird seed is concerned.

The patio is a mess. We've had winds over 25 mph for the past three days and all my leaf litter which was covering the daylilies is now littering the patio. Sigh. I'll sweep it all back into the garden until the next windstorm comes through.

Clouds and Puddles

A puddle down at the parking lot at the marina at Lake Brandt, just down the street from my house. Trying for a little bit of artistic photography here.

The day trip didn't happen; I backed out. After driving more than 600 miles altogether last weekend, I just couldn't muster much enthusiasm for a day trip, even one to the NC Zoo on a warm and sunny weekend. I'll have to troll through old snapshots and go out at lunch time to find something interesting to post.

The City of Greensboro is having a contest for photos for their website. They really and truly need to redesign this one; it is pretty blah. I've already submitted a couple; this one from Greenhills Cemetery and this one of the leading edge of Hurricane Earl. I'll post others as I submit them for the contest. Oh, you don't get anything for winning this, just your photo pictured on the site.

Sunset Sunday

Sunset over Lake Brandt yesterday. Sunny week forecasted and up in the 60's! Maybe spring will come after all.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Finding Another View. I'm doing this with Anyes at Far away in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.

Last Look

One last look at Holden Beach for this year. I hope to be able to go another trip next year with (fingers crossed) much better weather for the entire trip.

Road trip tomorrow. Destination hasn't been decided.

Elwell's Ferry

The problem with taking along Catherine Bishir's guides on these trips is that I need to stop at as many sites as I can find. My return trip to Greensboro, however, was made easier by the fact that the part of eastern North Carolina I was going through was pretty devoid of historic buildings.

But, there was a hundred-year old ferry just a jog off the road, so I went to investigate. As the North Carolina Historical Marker program wrote about this disappearing mode of transportation:

"Geography dictated the need for ferries during the colonial era in North Carolina. Over time bridges replaced the most of the small inland river ferries. Large vessels, administered by the Department of Transportation (DOT), today cover the vast expanses across the sounds. Only three of the small ferries, also run by DOT, remain. Two are in northeastern North Carolina. In Bertie County, the Sans Souci Ferry crosses the Cashie River and, in Hertford County, Parker’s Ferry crosses the Meherrin River. The other is Elwell's Ferry in Bladen County and crosses the Cape Fear River. All are diesel-powered and cable-drawn. A newspaper writer described such two-vehicle ferries as resembling “a renegade boat ramp—or a floating, fenced-in driveway.” DOT engineers indicate that there is little likelihood that the ferries will be displaced by bridges. Modern high-rise structures cost millions compared with modest costs for staff and fuel. As with other vestiges of the past, such as covered bridges, the ferries generate an allure for locals and for tourists." 

If the ferry is on the opposite side of the river, you just honk your horn to summon it. About 60 to 80 cars use the ferry daily, plus it seems to be a great draw in the summertime (from Internet searches that I did to find out more about it rather than the two sentence mention in the guide).

No, I didn't take it as it would have given me a long detour and I felt weird about just using the ferry to go back and forth across the Cape Fear River.

Sunday Morning at the Beach

With Friday and Saturday a washout as far as taking snapshots was concerned, I didn't have much hope for Sunday as we had to leave at mid-morning for the drive back to Greensboro. That didn't really leave a whole lot of time or options to take photos out on the beach.

The rain stopped late Saturday evening and I set my alarm clock to get up 15 minutes before the sun came up.

And these were the pictures I took last Sunday morning at 7 a.m.:

The weekend wasn't a total loss after all.

Holden Beach, North Carolina

Although the morning of our trip to Holden Beach started out bright and sunny, by the time we arrived at the cottage the clouds had moved in and the wind had started to pick up. The weather forecast was for rain all day on Friday, but it would clear out of the area by Saturday morning. I got a few pictures from the front porch of the cottage of the storm moving in:

The next day, it just opened up and poured.

And poured.

And came down in a deluge (was that an ark I saw on the beach?).

And the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than a dozen feet in front of you.

Altogether the area received more than three and a half-inches of rain in two days while Greensboro which is 250 miles west only got a quarter-inch. All that rain managed to break the previous record of rainfall for February (figures).

With the trip to the North Carolina Aquarium scuttled, I read some books that I had put off due to lack of time. And watched cable TV and confirmed my decision not to have it at home (what a brain-sucking time-waster).

When the rain let up a bit, I went out on the beach and took some snapshots in the film grain mode. This one of the sand dune fencing came out well:

And Saturday was an exact repeat of Friday's weather. Not conducive to taking lots and lots of good snapshots down at the beach.

Red-Shouldered Hawk

If I ever disappear from this blog without telling you that I am taking a hiatus or going on vacation or whatever, this will probably be the reason:

I stopped smack-dab in the middle of a road (thank goodness it was a back country road with no traffic) to take pictures of this gorgeous red-shouldered hawk as it posed for me on top of a telephone pole.

Someday I will do this and someone will re-end me at high rate of speed because they didn't see me or weren't paying close attention and that will be the end of me and the blog.

Hodges Business College. Mocksville, North Carolina

Our next stop was a building that was featured in Catherine Bisher’s book that really intrigued me – Hodges Business College just outside of Mocksville.

Hodges Business College was erected in 1894 by Professor John Hodges. It is Davie County's only surviving rural brick academy building. Hodges, a graduate of Duke and Yale Universities operated his school until the early 1900's when he became the superintendent of county schools. 

To teach business to young boys, Professor Hodges established the college in a brick building on Cherry Hill Road with 2,500 square feet, a pyramidal roof, and square bell tower. Thirty-six dollars paid for three months' tuition, room, and board. The business school closed in the early 1900s and the building turned into a boarding house. Now a private residence, the building represents Davie County on the National Historic Register (2000).

  

Here is a picture from right after the college was built in 1894:

And a copy of a photo taken in the early 1980's when the building was abandoned:

I didn't have high hopes for the building still being intact. I figured after close to thirty years, it had probably collapsed into a pile of rubble as some of the other historic places I had visited. So, imagine my surprise to find it nicely restored:

And even more surprised to find out that the house and the family who restored it had been featured on a series on HGTV called Home Schooled (I don't have cable or satellite, so I found this through a Google search). Click here to read about the house and see the pictures of the restored interior. What a wonderful surprise!

And I will be off-line until Monday as I am taking a few days off and going to Holden Beach near Wilmington. I'm planning on visiting the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, so hopefully good snapshots of fishes next week. 

Fulton United Methodist Church. Advance, North Carolina

After we paid our regards to Eng and Chang, we continued south towards our next destination, Fulton United Methodist Church in Advance.

It is on the National Register for Historic Places as it is a very unusual design for a North Carolina country church. It was built in a Gothic Revival style with Italianate accents. The door and window sills are made of leopardite, a native rock. Men and women entered the church through the two separate doors. 

The Haneses who founded P.H. Hanes Knitting Company, now known as Hanesbrands Inc. and one of the largest clothing manufacturers in the world (but no longer owned by the Hanes family) financed the entire building costs in 1888. The patriarch and founder of  Hanes and many members of his family are buried in the church cemetery. 

 And look who was perching on the weathervane . . .

Eng and Chang Bunker

The next stop, just outside of Mount Airy, may surprise those of you who aren’t familiar with two of our most famous citizens. No, not Andy Griffith. He and his TV show have been done to death in Mount Airy. You can have lunch at the Snappy Lunch, have your hair cut at Floyd the Barber, blah, blah, blah. I’m just not that interested in an almost 50 year TV program.

No, TB and I went to see Eng and Chang Bunker’s grave on the outskirts of town. Eng and Chang were the original Siamese Twins.

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. 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 United States, 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 became 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.

Some interesting facts about Eng and Chang Bunker (from the Surry County Arts Council website):

• That in 1839, Eng and Chang Bunker were the first Asians to become citizens of this country. They took the name Bunker from their close friends Fred and William Bunker who lived in New York City. They were such close friends that at one time, Chang had bequeathed all his estate to their sister, Catharine Bunker.
• That Eng and Chang were excellent fishermen, expert in the use of firearms, excellent performers on the flute, excellent with tools and construction, and above average in intellect.
• They had sons who fought in the Confederate army. Eng and Chang opened their homes to weary and hungry Confederate soldiers.
• They were the first Buddhists to enter this country.
• They brought the first Siamese Buddhist text into this country.
• They remain the only conjoined twins to have children.
• They lived to be 62 years old, longer than any other conjoined twins.
• That Chang died first on January 17, 1874 and Eng died several hours later.
• That their last living child, Robert E. Bunker (named after Robert E. Lee), died on January 25, 1951.

Photograph of Chang and Eng Bunker circa 1865 taken by Mathew Brady.
On the right is Chang, his wife Adelaide, and their son Patrick Henry;
on the left is Eng, his wife Sarah, and their son Albert