Henry William Stiegel was a German-American glassmaker and ironmaster. Stiegel was the eldest of six children born to John Frederick and Dorothea Elizabeth Stiegel in the Free Imperial City of Cologne. He immigrated to British North America in 1750 with his mother and younger brother, Anthony. The Stiegels sailed on a ship known as the Nancy, and arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 31, 1750. After arriving, Stiegel took a job in Philadelphia with Charles and Alexander Stedman, most likely as a clerk or bookkeeper. In 1752, Stiegel moved to what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to work with Jacob Huber, an ironworker. He married Huber's daughter, eighteen-year-old Elizabeth, the same year. The couple had two daughters, Barbara and Elizabeth. Elizabeth Huber Stiegel died on February 13, 1758, only ten days after giving birth to their second daughter. Stiegel married his second wife, Elizabeth Holtz, within a year. They had a son named Jacob. When Jacob Huber died in 1758, Stiegel and several business partners from Philadelphia assumed ownership of Huber's foundry and renamed it Elizabeth Furnace. Stiegel later purchased a forge in Berks County called the Tulpehocken Eisenhammer. He called the place Charming Forge, another iron forge near Lancaster. An active lay Lutheran and associate of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, he donated the land on which the Lutheran church inManheim, Pennsylvania is now built. Stiegel was also a founding member of the German Society of Pennsylvania, formed in 1764 to aid newly arrived German immigrants. He led the fundraising efforts to secure the plot of land on which the Society's first building was eventually erected. Stiegel reportedly died in poverty.
Stiegel advertised "enameled glass" for sale, and while he apparently did produce some actual enameled glass in his factory, it was long thought that this referred to the brightly colored style of "peasant glass" produced in Bohemia, Germany and Switzerland, some of which was imported to America. This type, whether made in Europe of America, is still often called "Stiegel-type" glass in America, even though it is now thought that Stiegel's advertisements actually meant white milk glass or the use of twisting white canes within stemware, not true enameled glass. Etched clear glasses may also be called "Stiegel-type".
