Mary Schenley

Mary Elizabeth Croghan Schenley (April 27, 1826 – November 5, 1903) was an American philanthropist to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Early life Mary Elizabeth Croghan was born April 27, 1826, near Louisville, Kentucky, to Col. William Croghan Jr. and Mary O'Hara, the daughter of frontier Pittsburgh businessman James O'Hara. As her mother's only heir, she eventually inherited large tracts of land amassed by her maternal grandfather, Gen. James O'Hara. Marriage and scandal While in boarding school in Staten Island, New York, at the age of 15, she met and fell in love with 43-year-old Captain Edward Wyndham Harrington Schenley of the British Army, and eloped to England. It was the captain's third elopement. The ensuing scandal sparked coverage in many American newspapers, and was referred to as "the greatest romance in Pittsburg's early history" in her New York Times obituary.