Charlotte Canda: A Tragic Death and Magnificent Monument

Charlotte Canda’s grave at Greenwood Cemetery in New York.

New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery is filled with extraordinary headstones, mausoleums and monuments. Of the latter, one of the most intricate and tragic is that of Charlotte Canda, who died after a freak carriage accident at the age of 17.

An inscription on her headstone reads:

Sketch of Charlotte Canda from The Evening World, April 25, 1893.

So sinks from sight Eve’s golden star

Lost in the watery depths of afar

Yet still does the fair planet burn

Not hopeless is our Charlotte’s urn

In God’s own morn her orb will rise,

Once more a star of Paradise.

Details of her sad story were recounted in The Evening World, from April 25, 1893:

“[Charlotte] was the idol of her parents and a belle of the town. Two sumptuous little parlors at the left of the entrance to the old mansion were fitted up for her own use, and there she received her admirers and entertained her friends in a style befitting her taste and social station.

“Every old New Yorker knows by heart the sad story of her death, and grandmothers have told the second generation of the fatal accident that befell her on a chill day in February, 1845, which was the anniversary of her birth.

“She was returning from a drive through the city when, at the corner of Broadway and Fourth street, the horses attached to her carriage took fright and ran away. Whether she was thrown out or jumped out, no one ever knew. She was borne into the New York Hotel and died soon after of her injuries.

“The horses turned into Lafayette place and dashed into the stable without even marring the carriage. And to this day many women who yet retain those sad scenes vividly in mind remark in telling the story that if Charlotte had clung to the carriage she might not have been hurt.

“After her death Miss Canda’s remains reposed in the dainty little parlor where she had received so many of her friends, and what was the most beautiful monument in Greenwood at the time was erected to her memory.

“The monument was made in Italy, of Carrara marble, and, as the story goes, the whole of Miss Canda’s marriage portion was spent upon it. The design is rare and there is no other monument in Greenwood that resembles it. The carving is so ornate and the whole work so delicate that it has withstood this severe climate only with the utmost care.

“The girl’s statue stands under a canopy of white marble, Gothic in style, and from this two low marble wings extend forward to embrace the stone that covers her remains. To the right and left at a short distance are kneeling angels, each on a pedestal facing the monument.”

Inscription at Charlotte Canda’s monument.