Learn all about Samuel Colt, the man behind the handgun that armed the West.
"God didn't make all men equal, Sam Colt did."
The man who inspired this common saying among Nineteenth Century wielder's of the world's most famous handgun, was born as Samuel Colt in Hartford, Connecticut in 1814. From an early age the child became intrigued by guns and how they worked. While other boys were playing, fighting or otherwise occupying themselves, young Sam could be found carefully disassembling his father's handguns and rifles and then meticulously putting them back together again.
Sam worked as a shipping hand as a teenager. At age 16, he found himself on a ship bound for India. It was while at sea the he carved a wooden model of a handgun with a revolving chamber. He was inspired by the wheel of the ship he was travelling on. He noticed that when the wheel was turned, a clutch aligned the spokes and linked the wheel in place. He developed and refined his model until, in 1835 he felt confident enough to patent a working model of his "˜revolver' in England and France in 1835. The model was patented in the United States in 1836. To raise money for his experimental models, entreprenuerial Sam toured the country under the name of Doctor Coult, giving shows in which he would demonstrate the effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
Colt's addition to the handgun market was, however, slow to take off. The range of single barrel pistols with rotating cylinders that were activated by cocking the hammer only recorded modest sales and the Company that was established to market them went in to bankruptcy.
With the failure of this enterprise Colt turned to other pursuits. He invented and developed the world's first remote control explosive device and became involved in a telegraph business. In 1847, however, the Colt firearms business was revitalised when the U.S.Army, having recognised how effective the Colt revolver had been in Indian skirmishes, placed an order for 1,000 of the hand guns to be used in the Mexican War. This was the boost that Sam needed to get his operation up and rolling again. From here there was no looking back. In 1855 he set about constructing a massive production plant in his hometown of Hartford, Connecticut. This site was, in fact, to become the world's largest armoury. Colt soon proved himself as a master industrialist as well as the world's finest producer of handguns. He introduced the production line as well as many innovative measures designed to benefit his employees.
Colt became the biggest supplier of handguns for the Civil War. Prior to the war Colt had helped the South to build up it's armoury but now that the war was on he became fully devoted to supplying the Union Army. Over the course of the war The Colt Firearms Company provided hundreds of thousands of weapons to the Government, The revolvers used during the war had rotating chambers which held several rounds. Unfortunately this ammunition, which consisted of a ball powder and percussion cap, had a tendency to misfire. A huge step forward came with the development of the metallic-cartridge revolver, the mainstay of the Colt Peacemaker, first issued in 1873. This gun was to become the standard issue of the Post-war army. It soon become the most popular hand gun in the West.
Samuel Colt, however, did not live to truly enjoy the rewards of his genius. He died on January 10, 1862, 11 years before the Company he founded, came up with it's most famous creation, the Peacemaker. His death, of natural causes, came at the age of just 49.
