The ornately and expensively decorated monument attracted thousands of visitors to Green-Wood Cemetery in the late 19th century.

[5] Charlotte's father, Charles Canda, was an officer in Napoleon's army and the headmaster of a school on Lafayette Place in Manhattan.

[2] Charles Canda was dropping one of Charlotte's friends off at a home on Waverly Place in Manhattan on her 17th birthday when the horses became spooked, perhaps because of a storm, and bolted.

[7][5][9] Symbolism at the monument includes books (Charlotte was fluent in five languages); musical instruments; drawing tools; down-turned torches, signifying extinguished life (except life that burns in the hereafter); parrots (her pets); and seventeen roses (she was celebrating her seventeenth birthday).

[3][4][11] Charles Albert Jarrett de la Marie (1819–1847), said to be Canda's fiancé, committed suicide a year after her death and is buried nearby.

Thou lovely flower, too delicate for earth, 'Tis only strange such beauty here had birth; Supine it fell before the autumnal blast To rise to Heaven when wintry storms have passed.