Peninsula In Passage

John Yeates High School opened in 1965. Twenty-five years later the new Nansemond River High School opened to students from Driver through the Harbour View area and the former high school became John Yeates Middle School. Yeates’ former Pig Point plantation property now houses Northern Shores Elementary School and was the campus of Frederick College and Tidewater Community College - both made possible by another local philanthropist, Frederick Beazley. Another sidelight, possibly as much local lore as fact, relates to a Yeates descendant. David Yates or Yeates, born in 1795, was a farmer in Wilkes County, North Carolina and had twin daughters, Sallie and Adelaide, born in 1813. When the girls were 30 they married neighbors who were natives of Siam and also twins, but conjoined. Chang and Eng, tiring of years of travel as a well-known circus attraction, adopted the surname Bunker and settled on the farm where they met the Yates twins.

Chang and Eng Bunker with wives Adelaide and Sallie Yates

Adelaide and Chang had 10 children and Eng and Sallie had 11. But living together as one big happy family didn’t work - the sisters squabbled, Chang drank and Eng gambled. The men finally went back into show business and took some of the children with them when they joined the Barnum American Museum on Broadway in New York City. P. T. Barnum dubbed them the “Siamese Twins.”

John H. Sheally II

Yates Free School

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