Western Pennsylvania History Fall 2015
Portrait of Mrs. Schenley by Thomas Lewis, oil on canvas, 1842. Carnegie Museum of Art, Acc. 31.6, Gift of the heirs of the Mary E. Schenley Estate. 22 WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY | FALL 2015 Postcard of the O’Hara homestead. This was not Mary’s birthplace, although it is likely that she spent much time there after she and her father moved to Pittsburgh. HHC Detre L&A. GPPC_BO11_IO2 Mary Elizabeth Croghan (pronounced and his enterprises so hurried the region’s Febiger O’Hara Denny and U.S. Congressman “Crawn”) was born into an impossibly development that his obituary proclaimed he Harmar Denny, to whom she referred as prominent family, whose tree resembles both “‘almost created a city himself.’”3 mother and father.7 an early American history reader (George Accordingly, Mary was born quite rich In 1834, William returned long enough Rogers Clark, George Croghan) and a on April 27, 1827, and lived the first months to begin building Pic Nic house, the Croghan’s contemporary map of Pittsburgh (O’Hara, of her life at the now-historic Locust Grove iconic Greek Revival-style mansion, on a Wilkins, Harmar, Carson, Darlington).1 mansion near Louisville, Kentucky.4 Tragedy sprawling 209-acre plot in the area that is She owed her extraordinary wealth to the struck half a year later when Mary’s mother, now Stanton Heights, about 5 miles northeast achievements of her grandfathers, James Mary Carson O’Hara, passed away in October, of downtown.8 Pic Nic was located on a O’Hara and William Croghan, Sr.—both followed by her four-year-old brother, Will, “commanding hilltop,” then known as Black Revolutionary War officers, successful the following April.5 Thus, Mary was sole Horse Hill in rural Pitt Township, and was businessmen, and holders of public office.2 heir to much of the O’Hara estate by her first thoroughly a country residence.9 In her later Croghan was the nephew of frontier fur trader birthday.
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