Millie Crissie the Carolina Twins

Sale 2068 - Lot 323

Price Realized: $ 1,380

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

MILLIE AND CHRISTINE AT FOURTEEN YEARS OF AGE Millie-Crissie, the "Carolina Twins." Carte-de-visite photograph; "Ed. B. Rogers, Photographer" on verso with copyright notice, 1865 by Mrs Joseph P. Smith. An additional note in pencil on the reverse states "Barnum's Museum, 539-541 Broadway, New York, 1866." (New York, 1865)

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Additional Details

A very early photograph of the noted conjoined twins who were born into slavery in North Carolina on July 11, 1851. The girls were talented and could sing and play . Millie and Christine were taken from their family and sold several times before they were acquired by their last owner, J. P. Smith. Smith exhibited the girls for some years and once while performing in New Orleans just prior to the Civil War, they were kidnapped. It took several years and a court battle for Smith to re-claim them. By now, they were free, but rather than return to their family, Millie and Christine chose to remain with their manager's widow, Mrs. Joseph P. Smith whose name appears on the copyright of this photograph.