Millie and Christine McCoy were born into slavery on July 11, 1851 in North Carolina. The girls were born Pygopagus Twins, having two sets of legs and upper bodies, but sharing a pelvis.
 
By the age of 6, they had been sold three times, the third time to showman J. P. Smith. Smith and his wife taught the girls to read, write, sing, dance and speak five languages. They were stolen from J. P. Smith by a rival and discretely exhibited throughout the United States and England. After England banned slavery, Smith found them working as an exhibit for the showmen Miller & Thompson. He reunited them with their mother and they began performing as 'The Two-headed Nightingale'. They had a very successful career and traveled with P. T. Barnum.
 
At age 49 they retired to North Carolina, buying the plantation on which they were born. Millie and Christine died in 1912 from tuberculosis, 17 hours apart.