526 



HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



New York city ; and Josephine, married 

 Dr. John Duncan Emmett. 



Mrs. Lucy Wharton Drexel now resides 

 on the old Bickley estate known as Pen 

 Ryn. It is part of a plantation of two 

 hundred and fifty acres purchased in 1744 

 by Abraham Bickley, Sr., a native of 

 Sussex, England, but of Welsh descent. 

 The plantation on the Delaware river was 

 then known as "Belle Voir." but its name 

 was changed by Mr. Bickley to Pen Ryn, 

 after the home of his ancestors in Wales. 

 Abraham Bickley married a daughter of 

 Robert Shewell and sister of Mrs. Benja- 

 min West, and settled on the plantation 

 on Bristol Pike. In 1804 he remodeled the 

 old mansion house by adding the present 

 front to it, and later renewed the back 

 portion. Mr. Bickley had six children : 

 Robert Shewell, Abraham, Isaac, Elizabeth, 

 Hannah, and Lydia, all of whom died un- 

 married, and all with the exception of 

 Abraham, Jr., lie buried in a vault erected 

 On the premises by Mr. Bickley. Robert 

 Shewell Bickley resided for the most part 

 in the city of Philadelphia, though he had 

 purchased several tracts of land adjoining 

 Pen Ryn, which, together with his inter- 

 est in the homestead, he devised at his 

 death to his sisters Elizabeth and Hannah. 

 Isaac Bickley died in 1853 and devised his 

 share in Pen Ryn to his sisters for life, 

 then to his relative Lloyd Wharton, who 

 took the name of Lloyd Wharton Bickley. 

 The sisters had previously made a deed 

 to Isaac for the land devised by Robert 

 and Pen Ryn, vesting the title in Lloyd 

 Wharton Brickley after the death of Isaac. 

 After the death of the latter, in 1890, Mrs. 

 Drexel purchased Pen Ryn of Mrs. Bickley. 

 and has since that time made it her home. 

 and has enlarged the mansion and made 

 extensive improvements in the surrounding 

 grounds. The stately old house commands 

 a fine view of the Delaware river and 

 surrounding country. Mrs. Drexel usually 

 spends the year at Pen Ryn. She is a wo- 

 man of high character, generous and hos- 

 pitable, and enjoys the esteem and friend- 

 ship of a very large circle of friends. 



CONVENT OF THE BLESSED SAC- 

 RA^IENT. Travelers, passing through 

 Bucks county via New York Division of the 

 Pennsylvania railroad, may be curiously at- 

 tracted by a large institution situated on an 

 eminence at Cornwells. overlooking the 

 Delaware river and displaying the quaint 

 form of architecture peculiar to both the 

 Spanish and Italian styles and resembling 

 somewhat in form the old Spanish Indian 

 Mission buildings of Southern California. 

 This institution, unique in its form of ar- 

 chictecture, is unique also in the plan of 

 work mapped out for the members who en- 

 ter it, whose lives after the customary pro- 

 bation and preparation, are to be conse- 

 crated to the Christianization, education. 



and elevation of the two neglected, aban- 

 doned, and oft despised races — the Negro 

 and the Indian. This building is known 

 as the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament, 

 St. Elizabeth's, Cornwells. It is the Moth- 

 er House of the Sisters of the Blessed 

 Sacrament, a religious body of women, or- 

 ganized in the year 1889 for the purpose 

 above named, the evangelization of the In- 

 dian and Negro. 



The conception of such an organization 

 originated in the first place, in the noble 

 and exalted mind of Right Reverend James 

 O'Connor, Bishop of Omaha, who in his 

 early priestly days had belonged to the 

 archdiocese of Philadelphia, and had been 

 pastor of St. Dominic's Catholic church, 

 Holmesburg, before his elevation to the 

 episcopate. A man thoroughly devoted to 

 th° best interests of the Indians, he had 

 during his apostolic visits witnessed not 

 only the wrongs to which they had been 

 subjected, the encroachments to which they 

 were forced to submit, the injustices for 

 which they obtained no redress, but also 

 with the deepest sadness, he had seen the 

 moral degredation of these people neglecteo 

 as it were, and in darkness waiting for the 

 bread of life, with none to break it to 

 them. He knew that for these evils there 

 was only one power that could cope effectu- 

 ally — the elevating and ennobling force of 

 the Christian religion which had human- 

 ized mankind, exemplified in the lives ot 

 its followers who were ready to freely 

 renounce all ties of earth to enlighten, 

 ameliorate and emancipate these people 

 from their physical, intellectual, and moral 

 bondage. While seriously pondering these 

 things, the deplorable condition and neglect 

 of another despised race appealed to his 

 great heart, and he planned to form a con- 

 gregation whose exclusive work should be 

 amonfst the people of these two races. 



In complete harmony with his designs 

 for the intellectual, moral and physical re- 

 generation of these two benighted' races, 

 he found a generous co-operator in Miss 

 Katharine M. Drexel of Philadelphia who 

 in the wealth which the heavenly Father 

 had placed at her disposal, saw only a 

 treasure confided to her care to be used 

 not for self, nor selfish purposes, but for 

 the uplifting of her fellow men. She knew 

 that "Kindness to the wronged is never 

 without its excellent reward, holy to man- 

 kind, and ever acceptable to God." and 

 "That the light of heaven's own love hath 

 fallen there 



Where deed on earth hath rendered less 

 The sum of human wretchedness." 



Therefore, though years before she had 

 learned"That the secret of life — is, 

 giving," she determined now, when this 

 gwnd Bishop appealed to her in behalf of 

 these races, to consecrate that wealth to 

 their service, to minister, to serve and to 

 espouse their cause forever. In 1889, she 



