Dr. Charles Lukens was a descendent of Jan Lucken, who was one of the founders of Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1682. Jan was one of 13 German families from the Palatine region of Germany near the Rhine.

Charles attended schools and completed enough education to become a physician.

His family religion had also shifted to Quaker, or the Religious Society of Friends. Charles and Rebecca Pennock met when she accompanied her father on a trip to Philadelphia. They were married in 1813. Charles abandoned his practice and moved to Coatesville in 1815 to become ironmaster for his father-in-law, Isaac Pennock, at the Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory. This allowed Isaac to focus on Rokeby. Charles Lukens saw to the daily administration. Charles and Rebecca would have six children. However, two boys would die at young ages. Charles and Rebecca began to modify the mill by reinforcing and repairing the mill and dam.

Charles was the first to explore new markets, most notably the production of iron boiler plate. The Brandywine Iron Works and Nail Factory would forever be changed when, on December 30, 1818, the mill became the first firm in America to roll that product. The next new venture would complement the first and cement the company's direction. In March 1825, Charles Lukens received an order for sheet iron to be used in the hull of the Codorus, the first iron-hulled vessel built in the United States. However, tragedy would also determine the course of the firm, as Isaac Pennock died in 1824 and Charles would not see the success of the Codorus, as he would also die before its voyage on the Susquehanna. This would leave Rebecca to fulfill her father's and husband's wish to run and manage the mill. However, the issue of ownership would continue to be unresolved for the next 25 years.

Dr. Charles Lukens is buried in the old Ercildoun Meeting Cemetery in Ercildoun, Pennsylvania, two miles south of Coatesville.