Source:Fleming-new-light
George T. Fleming. "New light shed on Schenley history: Young Pittsburgh girl the third who eloped with British captain: Big park crowds." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Feb. 20, 1916, sec. 6, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85899164.
ALTHOUGH the story of the Schenleys and the vast Schenley estate in Pittsburgh was expected to be concluded in last week's story, some additional and corroborative matter is at hand and it seems pertinent to reproduce it, especially as the name Schenley now occupies a large place in the public mind—that is to say, is of every-day mention.
In going through the various histories of Pittsburgh there is found much mention of the Schenleys. J. N. Boucher, who edited the large work entitled "A Century and a Half of Pittsburgh" goes extensively into the details of Mrs. Schenley's life and "her story."
From his account it appears that Capt. Schenley had a habit of eloping. His fire [sic] wife, the daughter of Lady Pool, eloped with him after a few meetings. They left a ball given by the Queen's Guards, in which the captain was serving at the time as an ensign.
His second wife, a Miss Inglish, was a counsin [sic] of the Earl of Fife, and a cousin once removed from Lord Erskine. While travelling with friends on the Continent she met the captain and she, too, consented to an elopement and they were married.
After her death he came to the United States and the account states visited the accomplished Mrs. McLeod, who conducted the Staten Island school where Mary Croghan attended. He was ill, it is alleged, and Mrs. McLeod's good intentions were to nurse him back to health and strength.
Gold Lace Dazzles Girls.
Mrs. McLeod, the account also states, was his sister-in-law—nee Inglis.
The gold lace and bright buttons of the British officer captivated the entire seminary, for it was admitted afterwards by one of the fair maidens that any one of them would have been his for the asking.
However, the notoriety of the captain's third elopement broke up the school. The standing and wealth of Miss Mary Elizabeth Croghan of Pittsburgh was dwelt upon in the newspaper accounts of the affair, leading timid parents to fear that other English guardsmen might take pattern from Capt. Schenley and cross the ocean to lie in wait for Staten Island school girls and thus snap up a handsome fortune, a la Schenley.
It is admitted that the captain was a penniless adventurer. He had a landed estate in England and was closely related to the nobility, the family name recorded in Burke's Peerage.
Mr. Boucher records the fact that Queen Victoria would not allow the captain to present Mrs. Schenley at court for many years, the reason given that Mary Elizabeth had been "a disobedient daughter." This seems harsh now, when we consider her many good qualities, but the facts are true, and many such things were said at the time of her marriage.
Lonesome As a Girl.
Mrs. Schenley's girlhood was a lonesome one. In fact, it was tedious and humdrum.
There were no young folks in Pic Nic house and none near. Her mother had died when she was an infant. Her fond father pitied her on account of this lonesomeness and that led him to send her to the Staten Island school.
As stated this was an ultra-fashionable institution. It was patronized by the wealthiest and most exclusive families of the metropolis, and the highly accomplished Mrs. McLeod was serene and placid in the enjoyment of a good thing in the way of patronage.
The Delafields, the Van Rensselaers (?), the Livingstons (spelled Livingstones), were all among its patrons. It was scarcely possible for the pupils to meet a stranger and even at receptions they were not allowed to speak to strangers.
Slight wonder then that when Capt. Schenley broke in girlish hearts went pit-a-pat. And then he was a relative, too, of the principal; of mature age; twice a widower with the eloping habit, but never a thought entered the head of the delighted Mrs. McLeod that he would spirit away one of her wealthy charges.
But the captain did not take her into his confidence, nor did he take anyone else, and Mary Elizabeth was as quiet as a mouse.
Mr. Boucher attests that the captain had many noble traits of character. He certainly was a successful eloper, a gallant soldier and a typical English gentleman.
He thoroughly imbued his wife, we are told, with the old English method of holding real estate, and "in this way," remarks the historian, "the possessions inherited by her from her mother have remained almost entirely in one name, all these years and are now known as the Schenley Estate."
Friend of Pittsburgh.
This quotation was printed as late as 1908. The historian adds that Mrs. Schenley proved "a loyal friend to Pittsburgh and well, indeed, has the city perpetuated her name."
This should be amended to read her married name.
Not only has she given Pittsburgh much of the park land, but the Block House site also, the Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind site and the site of the Newsboys' Home, formerly at Forbes street and Sixth avenue.
It appears from the biography of Mrs. Schenley that she was about 9 years of age when she first came to Pittsburgh with her father to reside here. Previously she had resided at her grandfather's home, Locust Grove, near Louisville, Ky.
For six years after the marriage of her father to Mary O'Hara they resided near Louisville, where the two children were born, the son, William, dying in early childhood; the mother in 1827, leaving Mary Elizabeth a motherless, brotherless and sisterless child.
Not strange then that she grew up to herself, with herself, in loneliness, yearning perhaps for hearts of her own sex in which she could confide.
We may just conclude that her seminary life on Staten Island had an element of chilliness about it, and that it lack [sic] the lovelight and tenderness typical of the parental home.
Miss Hermione Schenley, now Lady Ellenborough, visited Pittsburgh some 10 years ago. She is now a widow, her husband having died recently. He was an elderly man when they were married.
Mrs. Schenley's Children.
Mrs. Schenley had four daughters and one son. The daughters are Mrs. Henrietta A. Ridley, Mrs. Eliza P. Harbord, Mrs. Jane I. Crofton and Mrs. Melasina A. Gore. The son is George Alfred Courtenay Schenley.
The movement to obtain the Schenley tract now included in the park began as early as 1870.
Hill Burgwin, an eminent Pittsburgh attorney, then a member of Select Council from the old Twenty-third Ward, the Hazelwood and Squirrel Hill district, then but recently annexed, had an ordinance passed providing for the purchase of the property and submitting the project to a popular vote. The vote was against the proposition.
The town was comparatively poor then and parks were luxuries in a municipal sense. The price asked, approximating $300,000, staggered most people and the project came to naught.
In 1889 Edward M. Bigelow took up the park matter and with the parties who have been mentioned in the preceding articles carried the project to a successful conclusion. Mr. Bigelow was then director of the Department of Public Works and William McCallin was mayor.
An almanac issued by a Pittsburgh paper a decade or more ago states that the formal transfer of the park ground was made October 13, 1889. That date was a Sunday, but it was about that time.
Originally the grant from Mrs. Schenley was 300 acres. March 19, 1890, the city purchased 106 acres and some additions were subsequently made by purchase.
Mr. Bigelow from his efforts in this behalf has been called "The Father of the Parks," and his monument in Schenley Park is one of the imposing monumental features there. It was erected by popular subscription of wealthy men, mainly $100 each, and cost $12,746 05. The figure is of bronze and the pedestal of granite. It was unveiled July 4, 1895.
Big Park Celebration.
Perhaps the greatest celebration ever held in Schenley Park was on July 4, 1891. That day Mr. Bigelow cabled Mrs. Schenley as follows:
More than 100,000 grateful people enjoying themselves celebrating the Fourth of July in Schenley Park.
C. L. Magee also sent a congratulatory telegram estimating the throng at 150,000. The newspapers varied in their estimates, the lowest being 65,000 people.
H. I. Gourley was the mayor of Pittsburgh and presided. Clarence Burleigh was master of ceremonies.
The Schenley Park march, by Herr Daitz, a well-known member of the Great Western Band of Pittsburgh, was played and dedicated to Mayor Gourley; Prof. G. M. Sleeth read the Declaration of Independence. John Dalzell delivered the oration, a masterful effort; Superintendent George J. Luckey of the Pittsburgh schools delivered a humorous speech which caught the crowd; Dr. E. A. Wood of the South Side, the Rev. Dr. William J. Holland, Samuel U. Treat and William D. Moore also delivered orations; 44 guns were fired by Battery B from Mt. Airy in the park; there was an afternoon of athletic sports and in the evening fireworks galore and the celebration wound up in a blaze of glory, and the park idea became fixed.
Tenth Regiment Reception.
The reception and parade on the return of the Tenth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, from Manila, August 28, 1898, was a gala day in Pittsburgh. President McKinley was present and spoke to an immense throng from the grandstand in Schenley Park. It is believed that more people were present on that day than on July 4, 1891.
About where the Hotel Schenley stands, shortly after the Civil War, was the Oakland Driving Park, conducted by Maj. Harvey B. Van Vorhis. Here many trotting contests of national reputation were run and old-timers will remember as far back as 1866 how Robert Bonner's Dexter beat Copper Bottom and Magoosler there, and how, for years afterward, every boy who believed Dexter was the King of the Turf, had the name Dexter painted on the side of his sled.
Then in 1870 or thereabouts Maj. Van Vorhis wintered some buffalo on the race track grounds and these attracted small boys by hundreds.
The Schenley Farms tract includes all the ground between Fifth avenue and Center avenue, from Bouquet street to Bellefield avenue. Under the term "Farms" none of the property across Forbes street was included.
Across Center avenue, skirting the eastern base of Herron Hill, the "Farms" included a triangular lot, coming to a point at the upper end or up the hill. This strip was for years overgrown with weeds, sumac and briars and was a steep hillside in some places.
Pepper Corn As Rent.
It may be of interest to note that the property we know as Schenley Farms was deeded by the Penn heirs to Edward Smith, January 24, 1791, for a consideration of £310 and subject to a yearly rent of one pepper corn, a curious instance of consideration often used in old English tenures.
The property was in the possession of Gen. James O'Hara and his heirs for 104 years, or three generations. There are thousands of Pittsburghers who will recall the old farm, and growing crops on it as late as 1905, when the Schenley Farms Company was organized and purchased the property, since which time it has become noted for the character and beauty of its architectural adornment and the number of elegant residences within its limits.
The map of Pittsburgh of 1830 by Jean Barbeau and Lewis Keyon shows O'Hara property on the hillside opposite Mechanics street in the borough of Northern Liberties, the city line of Pittsburgh then at the canal, now Eleventh street and Washington street, now Place. The hill is marked Stone Quarry Hill. Mechanics street is now Sixteenth street.
In the downtown district the O'Hara holdings then shown were an irregular lot including the hillside above the yards of the Panhandle Railroad on Try street at Second street, now avenue, and the tract at the Point above the old Block House.
On the North Side O'Hara holdings are shown across the borough line of Allegheny, on both sides of East lane from the East Commons to the line of the Voeghtly estate.
Some of these lots are marked Croghan, notably outlots 140, 141, 144 and 145. The O'Hara lots were 136, 137 and 142.
Through part of this property the Butchers, or Saw Mill Run, flowed and the old street known as O'Hara was subsequently laid out.
G. W. Grimes, who was familiar with Pic Nic House Mansion and grounds in his boyhood and knew Mrs. Koehler and family, states that the old painting of Capt. Schenley, full length, in uniform, was left in the house, but it and other pictures were in late years removed. He also notes failure to mention the high-post, old-fashioned bedsteads were part of the furniture.
Old Schenley Holdings.
Old plots of Pittsburgh, back in the '80s, show the Schenley Park tract to have contained 379 acres. Its southern line was Forward avenue in Four Mile Run.
To the east it was bounded by the lands of James Murdoch and Alexander and John Murdoch. On the west the line ran into Junction Hollow, the roadway in the hollow once called Boundary street.
The Schenley Farms tract plots show a lot at Desota street sold off it, and also the lot where the Bellefield School stands. J. J. Vandergrift owned the irregular lot at Fifth and Bellefield avenues, across from the Bellefield Church. Across Bellefield avenue were the holdings of the Henry Lloyd estate, and across Bayard street the land of Mrs. Isabella Comingo, sister of Isaac Craig, which reached to Center avenue.
St. Pierre street, passing the Hotel Schenley site, has been merged into the Grant boulevard.
In plots of 1889 and earlier a brick yard is shown on the hoted [sic] site, stretching from Fifth avenue to Forbes street. St. Pierre street was laid out through the park.
The Schenley Farms tract is shown in 1889 platted, with streets regularly laid out through it.
Croghan street is shown at the upper end of the Bellefield School. Across Fifth avenue were the Murdoch greenhouses, extending through to Forbes street, and across Forbes street the Oakland Methodist Episcopal Church lot evidently has been sold from the Schenley property. The lots adjoining are now built upon on [sic] the Forbes street front and the rear now Forbes Field.
Some Properties Sold.
The ground on which "Billy" Sunday's tabernacle stood was also Schenley property. This from memory seems to have been part of the old Oakland Driving Park.
Three lots were evidently sold of the Fifth avenue front, the Brown, McCurdy and Raam properties. The houses still stand on them.
Speaking of the Oakland race course—a half-mile track—"Jimmy" Owens, a well-known brick work contractor, lately deceased, owned the horse Magoozler and in his "memoirs" published a decade ago tells how he bought the horse for $575. Magoozler was a pacer and could not be broken to trot.
"Jimmy" states that he went into Levi Young's, a noted restaurant on Smithfield street, one night and met "the boys" and had a little dinner.
Watson and "Sam" Keys, noted horsemen of Pittsburgh, told him they had bought Magoozler for $7,500. "Jimmy" found $5,000 in bills in his pockets. "The boys" told him he had spent the rest. He let it go at that.
Dexter and Magoozler were afterwards sold, relates Mr. Owens, for $37,000. Perhaps this was the sale to Mr. Bonner.
Magoozler, an odd name, got to be a by-word in Pittsburgh and the expression, "Go it, Magoosler," had a slang run for some time.
Some uncertainty, it seems, is still prevalent concerning the property at Fifth avenue and Craig street previously mentioned. Dr. James King lived where the Cathedral now stands, having owned the property and built the house that was razed for the Cathedral. A. A. Carrier and his brother owned the two houses on the block between Craig street and Neville.
The one still standing was purchased by Robert C. Schmertz, the other by Simon Beymer.
Palatial Old Homes.
These houses were considered palaces in their day. They were of a style of architecture that has passed, yet it was attractive and served for convenience and comfort also.
The view of the park presented today is from a photograph made in 1905.
The view of Junction Hollow showing the cars of the Homestead and Highland trolley line was taken in 1893. It purports to show also the Oakland entrance to the park. The bridge in the background is across Forbes street. The Library and Museum had not yet been built. The Squirrel Hill Railway (also called the Homestead and Highland) cars started from Forbes and Boquet streets.
Many thousand people motor over the serpentine drive on Schenley Park. Few think or know that it is a perpetual reminder of hard times in Pittsburgh.
In the winter of 1893–94 the Wilson tariff was in effect. Cleveland had defeated Harrison and there was a standstill in business that pinched.
By popular subscription $250,000 was raised in Pittsburgh, which Mr. Carnegie met with a like sum. This money went to park improvement, largely in the making of Schenley roadways.
Men were allowed three days a week at $1 a day. Some were cold days, but the work went on.
The next election McKinley was elected. Two and three days a week at $1 per diem was not satisfactory.
The serpentine driveway and many Schenley roadways have a somber story in this way.
