Caledonia

HARRIS, Charles Wesley & John Wesley

Vermont Historical Magazine, No. XI, October 1867, p 425
[extracted from a section on the history of Sutton, Caledonia County, Vermont]

The HARRIS twins, John Wesley and Charles Wesley HARRIS, born 11 September 
1851 in Brookfield [Orange County], Vermont, sons of Rev. L. T. HARRIS, are 
noted for a similarity unusual even for twins in their looks, size and 
general appearance. At their birth there was a difference of but one ounce 
in their weight, one weighing six pounds ten ounces, the other six pounds 
eleven ounces, and there has never been known since, at an one time, a greater 
difference than one pound, and usually the difference has not exceeded the 
original ounce. While infants their mother distinguished them by strings of 
different colored beads, until when form eight to ten months old, first one 
and then the other broke the beads from their necks, whereupon a string of 
red yarn was tied around an ankle and worn for a long time as a 
distinguishing mark. When they were about one year old, one of them being 
unwell, the mother after getting them to sleep, prepared some medicine to 
give the sick child when it should awake. At length the child as she 
supposed, aroused, and the medicine was administered, but shortly after, by 
consulting the red string on the ankle, it was found the well child had taken 
the medicine. Their present weight is ninety-one and a half pounds. They 
still retain the same similarity in their looks, and those best acquainted 
with them cannot distinguish the one from the other. Charles, however, is 
able to get his lessons in school more readily than John, and one occasion, 
when they were called to recite, John failing to have his lesson committed 
was sent back to study it over. Upon which the boys quietly changed seats, 
and when John was called out to recite again, Charles came promptly and 
recited the lesson, and the teacher was satisfied. "The resemblance is still 
so perfect," their father writes, "I do not often attempt to distinguish 
them, and cannot do so without the closest inspection."

Submitted by Cathy Kubly