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Abiel W. Heilman, son of Nathan and Elizabeth (Miner) Heilman, was a veteran of the Civil War and a prominent industrialist of Allentown, Lehigh County, PA, founding a longstanding manufacturing firm that continued to operate well after his death, Heilman Boiler Works.
At the age of 19, in 1854, Abiel moved to Allentown and "worked at boiler making in this city with characteristic assiduity, making himself master of its every detail," said the 1886 book, Past, Present and Future of the City of Allentown. "Thrifty and industrious he laid by a greater part of his earnings with a view to establishing an industry of his own."
When the Civil War erupted in April 1861, he enlisted immediately. With his knowledge of metals, he was placed in a group of artillery specialists who became part of the 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was elected sergeant of Company I. After serving for 90 days, he was discharged from the regiment in July 1861. Later, for 13 days, he was part of the 5th Pennsylvania Militia Infantry, as second lieutenant.
After the war, Abiel resumed his career in boiler manufacturing, and built a new facility in 1870 that was considered "mammoth" and known in the 1880s as the Union Steam Boiler Works. It produced $155,000 in annual sales of locomotive boilers and tank, flue, vertical and cylindrical boilers, blast and steam pipes, stack and stand pipes. The company continued to operate in Allentown well into the middle of the 20th century. In 1922, it became incorporated and in 1945 constructed a new type of technology called a Heilman-Baudenhausen boiler, which used oil and captured waste heat to create four times the power a boiler could produce, and was to be used in both the United States and Soviet Union. More >>>
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