Mary Goelet, Duchess of Roxburghe was the daughter of prominent New Yorkers Mr. and Mrs. Ogden Goelet (née Mary Wilson of the "Marrying Wilsons".)[1]
The only daughter of Ogden Goelet, Mary, known as "May" within her family circle, married Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe in 1903 at the age of twenty-three. [2]. The 8th Duke and Duchess of Roxburgh settled at Floors Castle, where Mary decorated the fortress with her own collection of art including a priceless series of 17th century Gobelins tapestries[3]. After ten years of childlessness, Mary gave birth to a son and heir, George Innes-Ker, 9th Duke of Roxburghe, who succeeded his father in 1932. At the time of her marriage to the Duke of Roxburghe, Mary Goelet was the wealthiest American heiress, with a dowry of twenty million dollars, exceeded only by Consuelo Vanderbilt in the wealth brought to the transatlantic marriages of the pre-1914 era.