While in boarding school in
Staten Island, New York, at the age of 14, she met and fell in love with 42-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. Her father died in Pittsburgh in 1850 and Mary then received her full inheritance. In 1859, her husband became a
Member of Parliament for
Dartmouth, but three months later was unseated after an election petition committee found his win had been secured through bribery and corruption. Mary and Capt. Schenley had eleven children. Mary Schenley died at her home in
Hyde Park, London on November 5, 1903. At the time of her death, she was the largest owner of real estate in
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and her Pittsburgh real estate holdings at the time were worth more than $50 million. After her executors, including Andrew Carnegie, received $5,000 each, the remainder of her property was left to her children. Her English property, which was valued at about $5,000,000, was separately dealt with.
Philanthropy Throughout the late 19th century, Mary Schenley made many gifts of money to churches and public schools in Pittsburgh. More significantly, perhaps, she donated land to the city of Pittsburgh in 1889 for
Schenley Park; to Western Pennsylvania Institute for the Blind for a school in 1890; and in 1895, she gave the oldest relic in Pittsburgh, the
Fort Pitt Blockhouse and adjoining property, to the
Daughters of the American Revolution. She also donated the of land on which the
Carnegie Institute, a gift of
Andrew Carnegie, was built. Carnegie paid visits to Mary Schenley at her villa, Mont Fleury, at
Cannes, in the south of
France. ==Legacy and honors==