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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
TRIBUTE TO MISS JANET CARNOCHAN
To the editor Welland Tribune & Telegraph
[The Welland Tribune and Telegraph, 8 April 1926]
Whilst her death is fresh in the minds of the people, too much tribune cannot be paid to the memory of Miss Janet Carnochan.
Thirty years ago, about 1896, she began a wonderful work-the gathering together and preservation of historical relics and data pertaining to the history of the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake and the surrounding country that she jealously guarded. Ever since then, without receiving any financial remuneration, she labored indefatigably in the interests of the Niagara Historical Society, her interest never lessening. The motto “semper fidelis” applied to her, for she was as earnest and faithful at the last as at the first.
I, with a friend who wished to meet Miss Carnochan, visited the museum of the Niagara Historical Society last autumn; and although on account of her great age not as active as formerly, she took as much interest as ever in showing us around and explaining things.
Her masterful mind, her great firmness and kindliness of character, and desire to be helpful and make everything clear endured her to everyone who had occasion to meet her. Although Scottish by descent, her parents being born in the land of Burns, she loved the traditions of the town she resided in so long and near which she was born, and as it were lived in the atmosphere of the early pioneers. No one knew more about them than she did, and her knowledge was as exact as it was possible for it to be. I, being a descendent of one of the early pioneers, Michael Gonder, an United Empire Loyalist, who came to Newark, now Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1789, and therefore taking an interest in that historic position of old Upper Canada, made a visit twenty-five years ago to the town, and its historical collection, which was at that time stored in a room of the town hall. It was then I first met Miss Carnochan. I valued her friendship very highly. Her friendship was not of the passing kind. She will be missed. There may be someone to take her place, it is true, but the fact will ever remain with many-that there was only one Miss Carnochan.
The vast collection of relics and the substantial museum building for preserving them in, she was the means of having erected on land donated by her and, by funds she personally secured, will be a lasting monument to her memory, but will give the people of the future but a slight idea of the wonderful character they commemorate. –M.G. Sherk, 1201 Broadview Ave. Toronto. April 6th, 1926
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