Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham (1867–1917) was an American philanthropist and heiress who became notorious when she married one of the richest men of the Gilded Age.
Mary Lily outlived her first husband, Henry Flagler, inherited his huge fortune, married again three years later, and died under suspicious circumstances at age fifty.
In order to marry Mary Lily, Henry Morrison Flagler had to obtain a divorce from his second wife, who had become mentally ill over the course of their marriage.
Henry built Whitehall, a “….75-room, 100,000-square-foot Gilded Age mansion…as a wedding present for his wife, Mary Lily Kenan Flagler.
Headlines spoke of a “tragic mystery,” “foul play” and “murder” and seemed to imply that Mary Lily's husband may have had something to do with her death.
[14][15][16] Before they married, Judge Bingham waived his rights to the Flagler fortune and most of the estate was left to Mary Lily's birth family members.
Rumors of syphilis, drug use, alcoholism, and murder have swirled around the life of Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham ever since.
[5][19][21][22] The estate left was vast – “…estimated to be worth all the way from $65,000,000 to $130,000,000.” [23] Mary Lily's marriage to Henry Flagler helped make her entire family extremely wealthy.