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Carnochan, Janet

Main entryCarnochan, Janet
Birth placeStamford, Ontario
Birth date14 November 1839
Death placeNiagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
Death date31 March 1926
Identifier0194
Birth nameJanet Carnochan
Marital statussingle
Religious affiliationPresbyterian
Degree and dateteacher's certificate, Toronto Normal School
Paid workteacher (school); "headmaster" Niagara Public School
BiographyA woman of strong intellectual talent, Janet Carnochan (1839-1926) descended from Scottish-born parents who emigrated from Colmonell in Ayrshire to Stamford, Ontario around 1830. In 1841, James Carnochan and his wife, Mary Milroy, moved the family from Stamford to Niagara, where Janet and her four siblings attended school and St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church. Janet was a bright child who, she later claimed, was reading adult literature at four; as a young student, she favoured the works of Sir Walter Scott, and spent time immersing herself in CHAMBER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. She distinguished herself by qualifying as a teacher at the age of sixteen. She taught for two or three years at the Niagara Public School, then completed the usual three-year course at the Toronto Normal School in a mere five months. After teaching at Brantford Union School followed by a five-year stint as head female teacher at Wellington Street public school in Kingston, she returned home to Niagara in 1871, where she tended her ailing mother. Janet spent a year away from home, teaching at the rural Peterborough Union School, before returning again and taking an appointment as headmaster of the Niagara Public School, one that caused considerable consternation in that community. Six years later, she accepted a position as assistant teacher at the new Niagara High School, where she remained for twenty-three years, while living as her brother's tenant at her parents' home after their deaths in the mid 1880s. She helped to found the Niagara Historical Society and wrote many of their papers, later becoming their President and Curator. She was an honorary member of the Women's Historical Society of Toronto. She produced many pamphlets and volumes of history of the Niagara area, giving an historical theme even to her single pamphlet of poetry, FORT GEORGE'S LONELY SYCAMORE. A REMINISCENCE OF NIAGARA (c1889), and shared her interest in the Niagara area with her friend, author William Kirby. A Sunday School teacher for forty years and an active member of the women's Foreign Missionary Society, Janet gave an historical turn to her devotion to the Presbyterian Church in her accounts of the churches of St. Mark's and St. Andrew's. She dedicated much of her time participating in administrative affairs at the Niagara Public Library, both as secretary and treasurer, when not volunteering as temporary librarian. As a testament to her importance in her community, Janet was selected as a Canadian representative to the World's Congress of Representative Women in Chicago in 1893. After retiring from teaching in 1900, Janet continued to invest her time in document-based research and writing on Ontario history, an interest that inspired her "History of Niagara" column in the NIAGARA TIMES. She died in 1926 in Niagara.
TravelShipwrecked off coast of Nova Scotia en route to England in 1879; Chicago, 1893
Other notesAn historical plaque commemorating Carnochan stands on Castlereagh Street in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Siblings: Andrew (older); John (1845-). For detailed account of author's life, including narratives relating to historical Niagara, see JANET CARNOCHAN (1985) by John L. Field.
ResidencesStamford, Ontario (1839); Niagara, Ontario (1851); Brantford, Ontario; Kingston, Ontario (1865); Niagara, Ontario (1871, 1881, 1891, 1901); Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario (1926)
Geographic regionsSouthern Ontario
Primary genresnon-fiction (history); poetry
BooksTWO FRONTIER CHURCHES (1890); CENTENNIEL, ST. MARK'S [EPISCOPAL] CHURCH, NIAGARA, 1792-1892 (1892); NIAGARA ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO: THE ANCIENT CAPITAL AND ITS VICINITY (1892); CENTENNIEL ST. ANDREW'S, NIAGARA, 1794-1894 (1895); ST. ANDREW'S, NIAGARA, 1794-1894 (1895); INSCRIPTIONS AND GRAVES IN THE NIAGARA PENINSULA (1902); ANNIVERSARY OF ST. MARK'S CHURCH, NIAGARA (1911); HISTORY OF NIAGARA (1914); FORT GEORGE'S LONELY SYCAMORE. A REMINISCENCE OF NIAGARA (n.d.); SHIPWRECKED ON SABLE ISLAND, ed. J. L. Field (1986)
PeriodicalsCANADIAN METHODIST MAGAZINE; DOMINION ILLUSTRATED; TORONTO GLOBE; TORONTO NEWS; THE WEEK
OrganizationsMonday Club; Literary Club; Niagara Historical Society
Father's nameJames Carnochan
Life dates of fatherc1809, Scotland - 1884, Ontario
Father's notecabinetmaker; carpenter; emigrated with wife from Colmonell, Ayreshire, Scotland
Mother's nameMary Milroy
Life dates of motherc1804, Colmonell, Ayrshire, Scotland - 15 July 1886, Niagara, Ontario
Biographical referencesField, JANET CARNOCHAN (1985); WOMAN'S WHO'S WHO OF AMERICA (1914-15); Dagg, THE FEMININE GAZE (2001), pp. 59-60; Morgan, "Carnochan, Janet" on DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY XV, University of Toronto/Universite Laval (Web, 2000); Frances Drake Smith, "Miss Janet Carnochan," CANADIAN MAGAZINE 38 (June 1912): 293-97.; 1851 Census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia; 1871 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; 1901 Census of Canada; Canadian City and Area Directories, 1819-1906; Dictionary of Canadian Biography XV
Bibliographic referencesWatters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 38, 662, 768
Research referencescomplete
Image creditsImage from Francis Drake Smith, "Miss Janet Carnochan: A Sketch and an Appreciation," THE CANADIAN MAGAZINE 38 (January 1912): 293.
CopyrightThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014.