Canobie and Gretna avenues were named on a 1922 tract owned by James (1867-1934) and Shirley (1870-1954) Thomson. James was born in Gretna Green, Scotland, so there’s no question as to how Gretna Avenue came by its name. As for Canobie? It’s got to be a misspelling of Canonbie, a village 7 miles away from Gretna Green. The only other possible namesake would be Canobie Lake, NH, which adapted its own name from the Scottish village but had no connection to the Thomsons. At any rate, James grew up in Edinburgh, apprenticed at a paper manufacturer, then moved to India at 21 to manage the Titaghur Paper Mills in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He had one son there with his first wife Margaret, who died in 1904. He married Dr. Shirley Holmes Smith, a medical missionary from Michigan, in 1908 and had three additional children with her. The Thomsons left India for the U.S. in 1916 and settled in Whittier three years later. They relocated to Claremont in 1928.
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