This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.

And our next story is about a brand name we all know Steinway but a man

you don't know Henry Steinway in the end the story we're about to hear is a story

about resiliency and a man's search for freedom here's Greg Hangler as guest As guests dine on succulent roasted fowl and mouth-watering marinated oysters,

washing their palates with ice-cold champagne, piano music is in the air.

The occasion is the opening of the new Steinway factory in New York on April 1, 1860.

A correspondent from a local newspaper declares,

It is conceded that the Steinway piano in make, tone, sweetness, precision, and durability is the most

perfect instrument of that class to be had anywhere in the world.

The road to victory began 63 years earlier in Wolfshaugan, a small forest hamlet nestled in the slopes of the Upper

Hearts Mountains in northwest Germany, where Heinrich Steinvig, founder of Steinway and Sons,

is born. Church records reveal that the Steinvigs were master charcoal burners. They lived in the woods, and, like most charcoal burners,

were regarded with deep suspicion by townspeople who rarely saw them.

Steinvig's childhood is marked by many tragedies and twists of fate.

At the age of eight during a harsh winter,

his mother and most of his siblings die from exposure.

He is orphaned until his father than brothers, once thought to have been killed in action,

returned from the Napoleonic wars and claim him.

Then, at 15, he is orphaned once again, penniless, and living on the streets.

He seeks refuge in the German army.

Two years later, he's fighting against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815.

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