William Henry was born on May 19, 1729, in Chester County, Pennsylvania. As a youth of modest financial means, he was apprenticed to a local gunsmith, and by the age of 20 he had his own gun manufacturing business. During the early years of the French and Indian War (1754-63), he served under Edward Braddock (and experienced Braddock's defeat at Fort Duquesne) in 1755 and later served under John Forbes in 1756. He left military service before the war concluded.

Henry had an inborn capacity for science and mechanics and was an early pioneer in the development of steam-powered engines (he managed to propel a vessel by steam in 1763, but the ship broke apart from the engine vibration). He spent most of 1761 in the company of James Watt in England, and upon his return to the North American colonies, he joined the American Philosophical Society and befriended Benjamin Franklin.

Henry held multiple government posts. Between 1765 and 1775, he served as the assistant burgess of Lancaster County, and in 1771 he was appointed canal commissioner, in which role he became an early champion of internal improvements. Throughout the 1770s and 1780s he held a variety of local judicial positions in Pennsylvania. He was in charge of Pennsylvania finances throughout the Revolutionary War (1775-83) and served as the official liaison between the Pennsylvania assembly and the Board of War of the Second Continental Congress. His gun works supplied the Continental army, and he eventually oversaw the manufacture of other necessary military supplies.

After the Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1777), Congress evacuated Philadelphia and fled to Lancaster County. Henry personally took into his home David Rittenhouse, John Hart, and Thomas Paine (whose heavy drinking and espousal of deism caused great friction between Henry and his wife). Henry himself was elected to Congress in 1784, 1785, and 1786, and he sat on committees for coinage and Indian affairs. He died of a lung affliction on December 15, 1786.

Bibliography:

Francis Jordan, Jr., The Life of William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1729-1786: Patriot, Military Officer, Inventor of the Steamboat (Lancaster, Pa.: The New Era Printing Company, 1910).

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