Forever Seventeen - Charlotte Canda

Charlotte Canda (1828 - 1845) was a young New York City debutante who died in a horse carriage accident while coming home from her 17th birthday party. 

Charlotte's father, Charles Canda, was an officer in Napoleon's army and the headmaster of a school on Lafayette Place in Manhattan. He and his wife, Adele Canda, adopted Charlotte when she was an infant. Charles Canda was dropping one of Charlotte's friends off at a home on Waverly Place in Manhattan when the horses became spooked, perhaps because of a storm, and bolted. Charlotte fell out of the moving carriage at Broadway and Waverly Place, hitting her head on the pavement. She died in her father's arms.

She is memorialized with an elaborate tomb at Brooklyn's Greenwood cemetery, wearing the dress she wore to her birthday party.