Credited as its founder, Henry William Stiegel was among 270 German Palatines who disembarked from the ship “Nancy” at Philadelphia on August 30, 1750 from his native Cologne on the Rhine. His first employment in the new world was with Charles and Alexander Stedman, Philadelphia merchants.

Leaving Philadelphia in 1752, he was next heard of as a clerk in the employ of ironmaster Jacob Huber at Elizabeth Furnace in northeastern Lancaster County. Stiegel rapidly found favor with his new employer’s 18 year old daughter, Elizabeth, and soon were married. They had two daughters, Elizabeth and Barbara. Ten days following the birth of the second daughter, the mother died. Within a year of her death, Stiegel journeyed to Roxborough, near Philadelphia where he took as his second wife Elizabeth Holz, who bore him a son, Jacob. By the year 1756, Stiegel’s friendship with the Stedmans crystallized into a business partnership, where they purchased Elizabeth Furnace and Stiegel took the role of active ironmaster.

The Stedmans had purchased various tracts of land in the Pennsylvania colony. In February 1762, they purchased a tract of 729 acres of land in Rapho Township. Seven months later, Stiegel purchased an undivided one-third of this land.

Stiegel and the Stedmans laid out a town on the tract and named it Manheim. The town would consist of 359 lots of uniform size and numerous out-lots on the periphery. On the eastern end of High Street, Stiegel built a mansion, while on the western end he erected an office to headquarter his existing business interests, as well as other projects still being planned.

There is evidence that Stiegel experimented in blowing glass at Elizabeth Furnace, but it was in his town of Manheim, on the northwest corner of Charlotte and Stiegel Streets, that he erected a plant specific for the manufacture of blown glass. He continually improved the products of his plant and enlarged the plant itself. At the zenith of his career as a glassmaker, he employed approximately 100 men.

Continuing his deep interest in the town, he became its sole owner through a series of financial transactions.

In 1772 at the height of his career, he conveyed to his fellow Lutherans in Manheim a plot of ground on which to build a church, for five shillings and “in the month of June yearly forever hereafter the rent of One Red Rose if the same shall be lawfully demanded”.

Notwithstanding the success of Stiegel in the realm of iron and glass making, he suffered complete financial failure in 1774 and is remanded to debtor’s prison. One month later, he was released by a special act of the Colonial General Assembly. Sometime in 1775 he left town without ownership title to even a square foot of land in Manheim. Stiegel was dependent on friends and relatives for a place to live for the rest of his life. He returned to work as a supervisor at Elizabeth Furnace, then owned by Robert Coleman. His last years were spent teaching school at Brickerville, Schaefferstown and Womelsdorf. The time of his death is unknown as well as his place of burial.

Henry William Stiegel is one of the most celebrated characters in Lancaster County history. The Festival of the Red Rose, where Zion Lutheran Church makes payment of one red rose to an heir of Stiegel, continues annually to this day. Museums still honor his memory exhibiting products of his Manheim Glassworks. With these continuing, Stiegel and his town of Manheim will long live in memory and the pages of history.  In his memory, plans are forming to make the 250 anniversary of our town quite special in 2012.  Watch for details! 

Manheim while founded in 1762 was incorporated as a Borough in 1838 with David May named as its first Burgess.