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Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt in 1855
Born	July 19, 1814 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	January 10, 1862 (aged 47) Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Resting place	Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Inventor, industrialist, businessman, hunter
Spouse	Elizabeth Hart Jarvis (m. 1856-1862)
Relatives	John C. Colt (brother) Caldwell Hart Colt (son) Samuel P. Colt (nephew)
Awards	Telford Medal
Signature

Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt’s Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable.

Colt’s first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey, and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. His business affairs improved rapidly after 1847, when the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 revolvers during the American war with Mexico. Later, his firearms were used widely during the settling of the western frontier. Colt died in 1862 as one of the wealthiest men in America.

Colt’s manufacturing methods were sophisticated. His use of interchangeable parts helped him become one of the first to use the assembly line efficiently. Moreover, his innovative use of art, celebrity endorsements, and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer of advertising, product placement, and mass marketing.

Early years (1814–1835)[edit]

Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Christopher Colt (1780–1850), a farmer who had relocated his family to the city after he became a businessman, and Sarah (née Caldwell). His maternal grandfather, Major John Caldwell,^[1] had been an officer of the Continental Army; one of Colt’s earliest possessions was John’s flintlock pistol. Colt’s mother died from tuberculosis when Colt was six years old, and his father married Olivia Sargeant two years later. Colt had three sisters, one of whom died during her childhood. His oldest sister, Margaret, died of tuberculosis at age 19, and the other, Sarah Ann, later committed suicide. One brother, James, became a lawyer; another, Christopher, was a textile merchant. A third brother, John C. Colt, a man of many occupations, was convicted of an 1841 murder and committed suicide on the day he was to be executed.^[2]

At age 11, Colt was indentured to a farmer in Glastonbury, where he did chores and attended school. Here he was introduced to the Compendium of Knowledge, a scientific encyclopedia that he preferred to read rather than his Bible studies. Its articles concerning Robert Fulton and gunpowder motivated Colt throughout his life. He discovered that other inventors in the Compendium had accomplished feats that were once deemed impossible, and he wanted to do the same. Later, after hearing soldiers talk about the success of the double-barreled rifle and the impossibility of a gun that could shoot five or six times without reloading, Colt decided that he would create the «impossible gun».^{[citation needed]}

During 1829, at the age of 15, Colt began working in his father’s textile plant in Ware, Massachusetts, where he had access to tools, materials, and the factory workers’ expertise. Referencing the encyclopedia, Samuel built a homemade galvanic cell and advertised as a Fourth of July event during that year that he would explode a raft on Ware Pond using underwater explosives; although the raft was missed, the explosion was still impressive.^[3] Sent to boarding school, he amused his classmates with pyrotechnics. During 1830, a July 4 accident caused a fire that ended his schooling, and his father sent him away to learn the seaman’s trade.^[3] On a voyage to Calcutta aboard the brig Corvo, Colt had the idea for a type of revolver while at sea, inspired by the capstan, or windlass, which had a ratchet-and-pawl mechanism that he would later say gave him the idea for his revolver designs.^[4][5] On the Corvo, Colt made a wooden model of a pepperbox revolver out of scrap wood. It differed from other pepperbox revolvers at the time in that it allowed the shooter to rotate the cylinder by the action of cocking the hammer, with an attached pawl turning the cylinder, which was then locked firmly in alignment with one of the barrels by a bolt, a great improvement over the pepperbox designs, which required rotating the barrels by hand and hoping for proper indexing and alignment.^{[citation needed]}

When Colt returned to the United States during 1832, he resumed working for his father, who financed the production of two guns, a rifle and a pistol. The first completed pistol exploded when it was fired, but the rifle performed well. His father would not finance any more development, so Samuel needed to find a way to pay for the development of his ideas.^[6] He had learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from the factory chemist of his father’s textile plant, so he took a portable laboratory on tour and earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada, calling himself as «the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta».^[7] Colt thought of himself as a man of science and believed if he could enlighten people about a new idea like nitrous oxide, he could in turn make people more receptive to his new idea concerning a revolver. He started his lectures on street corners and soon began doing the same in lecture halls and museums. As ticket sales decreased, Colt realized that «serious» museum lectures were not what the people wanted to pay money to hear and that it was dramatic stories of salvation and redemption the public craved. While visiting his brother John in Cincinnati, he partnered with sculptor Hiram Powers for his demonstrations with a theme based on The Divine Comedy. Powers made detailed wax sculptures and paintings based on demons, centaurs, and mummies from Dante’s work. Colt constructed fireworks to complete the show, which was a success.^[8] According to Colt historian Robert Lawrence Wilson, the «lectures launched Colt’s celebrated career as a pioneer Madison Avenue-style pitchman».^[9] His public speaking skills were so prized that he was thought to be a doctor and was obligated to cure an apparent cholera epidemic aboard a riverboat by giving his patients a dose of nitrous oxide.^{[citation needed]}

Having saved some money and still wanting to be an inventor as opposed to a «medicine man», Colt made arrangements to begin building guns using proper gunsmiths from Baltimore, Maryland. He abandoned the idea of a multiple-barreled revolver and opted for a single fixed-barrel design with a rotating cylinder. The action of the hammer would align the cylinder bores with the single barrel. He sought the counsel of a friend of his father, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, who loaned him $300 and advised him to perfect his prototype before applying for a patent.^[7] Colt hired a gunsmith by the name of John Pearson to build his revolver. Over the next few years, Colt and Pearson argued about money, but the design improved and during 1835 Colt was ready to apply for his U.S. patent. Ellsworth was now the superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office and advised Colt to file for foreign patents first, as a prior U.S. patent would keep Colt from filing a patent in the United Kingdom. In August 1835, Colt left for England and France to secure his foreign patent.^{[citation needed]}

Colt’s early revolver (1835–43)[edit]

During 1835, Samuel Colt traveled to the United Kingdom, much as had Elisha Collier, a Bostonian who had patented a revolving flintlock there that achieved great popularity.^[10] Despite the reluctance of English officials to issue a patent to Colt, no fault could be found with the gun and he was issued his first patent (number 6909). Upon his return to America, he applied for his U.S. patent for a «revolving gun»; he was granted the patent on February 25, 1836 (later numbered 9430X).^[11] This instrument and patent number 1304, dated August 29, 1836, protected the basic principles of his revolving-breech loading, folding trigger firearm named the Colt Paterson.^[12][13]

With a loan from his cousin Dudley Selden and letters of recommendation from Ellsworth, Colt formed a corporation of venture capitalists in 1836 to bring his idea to market. With the help of the political acquaintances of these venture capitalists, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, was chartered by the New Jersey legislature on March 5, 1836. Colt was given a royalty for each gun sold in exchange for his patent rights and stipulated the return of the rights if the company disbanded.^[14]

Colt never claimed to have invented revolvers; his design was a more practical adaption of Collier’s earlier revolving flintlock incorporating a locking bolt to keep the cylinder aligned with the barrel.^[10] The invention of the percussion cap made ignition more reliable, faster, and safer than the older flintlock design. Colt’s great contribution was the use of interchangeable parts. Knowing that some gun parts were made by machine, he envisioned all the parts of every Colt gun to be interchangeable and made by machine, to be assembled later by hand. His goal was an assembly line.^[15] This is shown by an 1836 letter that Colt wrote to his father in which he said,

The first workman would receive two or three of the most important parts and would affix these and pass them on to the next who would add a part and pass the growing article on to another who would do the same, and so on until the complete arm is put together.^[16]

Colt’s U.S. revolver patent gave him a monopoly of revolver manufacture until 1857.^[17] His was the first practical revolver and the first practical repeating firearm, thanks to progress made in percussion technology. No longer a mere novelty weapon, the revolver became an industrial and cultural legacy, as well as a contribution to the development of war technology, represented ironically by the name of one of his company’s later innovations, the «Peacemaker».^[16]

Early problems and failures[edit]

Although by the end of 1837 the Arms Company had made more than 1,000 weapons, there were no sales. After the Panic of 1837, the company’s underwriters were reluctant to fund the new machinery that Colt needed to make interchangeable parts, so he went on the road to raise money. Demonstrating his gun to people in general stores did not generate the sales volume he needed, so with another loan from his cousin Selden, he went to Washington, D.C., and demonstrated it to President Andrew Jackson. Jackson approved of the gun and wrote Colt a note saying so. With this letter, Colt got a bill approved by Congress endorsing a demonstration for the military, but failed to obtain an appropriation for military purchase of the weapon. A promising order from the state of South Carolina for 50 to 75 pistols was canceled when the company did not produce them quickly enough.^[17]

Constant problems for Colt were the provisions of the Militia Act of 1808, which stated that any arms purchased by a state militia had to be in current service in the United States military.^[18] This act prevented state militias from allocating funds towards the purchase of experimental weapons or foreign weapons.^[19]

Colt imperiled his own company by his reckless spending. Selden often chastised him for using corporate funds to buy an expensive wardrobe or give lavish gifts to potential clients. Selden twice prohibited Colt from using company money for liquor and fancy dinners; Colt thought getting potential customers inebriated would generate more sales.^[20]

The company was briefly saved by the war against the Seminoles in Florida which provided the first sale of Colt’s revolvers and his new revolving rifles. The soldiers in Florida praised the new weapon, but the unusual hammerless design, sixty years ahead of its time, resulted in difficulty in training men who were used to exposed-hammer guns. Consequently, many curious soldiers took the locks apart. This resulted in breakage of parts, stripped screw heads and inoperable guns.^[21] Colt soon reworked his design to leave the firing hammer exposed, but problems continued. During late 1843, after the loss of payment for the Florida pistols, the Paterson plant closed and a public auction was held in New York City to sell the company’s most liquid assets.^[22][23]

Mines and tinfoil[edit]

Colt did not refrain long from manufacturing and began selling underwater electrical detonators and waterproof cable of his own invention. Soon after the failure of the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, he teamed with Samuel Morse to lobby the US government for funds. Colt’s waterproof cable, made from tar-coated copper, proved valuable when Morse ran telegraph lines under lakes, rivers, and bays and made attempts to lay a telegraph line under the Atlantic Ocean.^[24] Morse used the battery from one of Colt’s mines to transmit a telegraph message from Manhattan to Governors Island when his own battery was too weak to send the signal.^[25]

When tensions with the British prompted Congress to appropriate funds for Colt’s project toward the end of 1841, he demonstrated his underwater mines to the US government. During 1842 he used one of the devices to destroy a moving vessel to the satisfaction of the United States Navy and President John Tyler. However, opposition from John Quincy Adams, who was serving as a US Representative from Massachusetts’s 8th congressional district, scuttled the project as «not fair and honest warfare» and termed the Colt mine an «unchristian contraption».^[26]

After this setback, Colt turned his attention to perfecting tinfoil cartridges he had originally designed for use in his revolvers. The standard at the time was to have powder and ball contained in a paper or skin envelope or «cartridge» for ease of loading. However, if the paper got wet it would ruin the powder. Colt tried alternative materials such as rubber cement, but decided to use a thin type of tinfoil. During 1841 he made samples of these cartridges for the army. During tests of the foil cartridges, 25 rounds were shot from a musket without cleaning. When the breech plug was removed from the barrel no fouling from the tin foil was evident. The reception was moderate and the army purchased a few thousand rounds for further testing. During 1843 the army gave Colt an order for 200,000 of the tinfoil cartridges packed 10 to a box for use in muskets.^[23]

With the money made from the cartridges, Colt resumed business with Morse for ideas other than detonating mines. Colt concentrated on manufacturing his waterproof telegraph cable, believing the business would prosper along with Morse’s invention. He began promoting the telegraph companies so he could create a greater market for his cable, for which he was to be paid $50 per mile.^[27] Colt tried to use this revenue to resurrect the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, but could not secure funds from other investors or even his own family. This left Colt time to improve his earlier revolver design and have a prototype built by a gunsmith in New York for his «New and improved revolver». This new revolver had a stationary trigger and had a larger caliber. Colt submitted his single prototype to the War Department as a «Holster revolver».^[23]

Colt’s Patent Manufacturing Company (1847–1860)[edit]

Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers had acquired some of the first Colt revolvers produced during the Seminole War and saw first-hand their effective use as his 15-man unit defeated a larger force of 70 Comanches in Texas. Walker wanted to order Colt revolvers for use by the Rangers in the Mexican–American War, and traveled to New York City in search of Colt. He met Colt in a gunsmith’s shop on January 4, 1847, and ordered 1,000 revolvers.^[28][29] Walker asked for a few changes; the new revolvers would have to hold 6 shots instead of 5, have enough power to kill either a human or a horse with a single shot and be quicker to reload. The large order allowed Colt to establish a new firearm business. Colt hired Eli Whitney Blake, who was established in the arms business, to make his guns.^[30] Colt used his prototype and Walker’s improvements as the basis for a new design. From this new design, Blake produced the first thousand-piece order known as the Colt Walker. The company then received an order for a thousand more; Colt shared the profits at $10 per pistol for both orders.^[30]

With the money he made from the sales of the Walkers and a loan from his cousin, banker Elisha Colt, Colt bought the machinery and tooling from Blake to build his own factory: Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company factory at Hartford.^[31] The first revolving-breech pistols made at the factory were named «Whitneyville-Hartford-Dragoons» and became so popular that the word «Colt» was often used as a generic term for the revolvers.^[29] The Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoons, largely built from leftover Walker parts, are known as the first model in the transition from the Walker to the Dragoon series. Beginning 1848, more contracts followed for what is known now as the Colt Dragoon Revolvers. These models were based on the Walker Colts, and during three generations slight changes to each model showed the evolution of the design. The improvements were 7+1⁄2-inch (190 mm) barrels for accuracy, shorter chambers and an improved loading lever.^[29] The shorter chambers were loaded to 50 grains of powder, instead of 60 grains in the earlier Walkers, to prevent the occurrence of ruptured cylinders.^[29] Finally, a positive catch was installed at the end of the loading lever to prevent the lever from dropping due to recoil.^[29][32]

Besides being used in the war with Mexico, Colt’s revolvers were employed as a sidearm by both civilians and soldiers. Colt’s revolvers were a major tool used during the westward expansion. A revolver which could fire six times without reloading helped soldiers and settlers fend off larger forces which were not armed in the same way. During 1848, Colt introduced smaller versions of his pistols known as Baby Dragoons that were made for civilian use. During 1850 General Sam Houston and General Thomas Jefferson Rusk lobbied Secretary of War William Marcy and President James K. Polk to adopt Colt’s revolvers for the U.S. military. Rusk testified: «Colt’s Repeating Arms are the most efficient weapons in the world and the only weapon which has enabled the frontiersman to defeat the mounted Indian in his own peculiar mode of warfare». Lt. Bedley McDonald, who was a subordinate of Walker when Walker was killed in Mexico, stated that 30 Rangers used Colt’s revolvers to keep 500 Mexicans in check.^[33] Colt used this general design for the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver which was larger than the Baby Dragoon, but not quite as large as the full-sized version. The gun became the standard sidearm for U.S. military officers and proved popular among civilian buyers. After the testimony by Houston and Rusk, the next issue became how quickly Colt could supply the military.^[34] Ever the opportunist, when the War with Mexico was ended, Colt sent agents south of the border to procure sales from the Mexican government.^[35]

Patent extension[edit]

During this period, Colt received an extension on his patent, since he did not collect fees for it during the early years. During 1869, gun makers James Warner and Massachusetts Arms infringed on the patent. Colt sued the companies and the court ordered that Warner and Massachusetts Arms cease revolver production. Colt then threatened to sue Allen & Thurber due to the cylinder design of their double-action pepperbox revolver. However, Colt’s lawyers doubted that this suit would be successful and the case was resolved with a settlement of $15,000. Production of Allen pepperboxes continued until the expiration of Colt’s patent during 1857.^[36] During 1854 Colt struggled for his patent extension with the U.S. Congress, which initiated a special committee to investigate charges that Colt had bribed government officials in securing this extension. By August he was exonerated and the story became national news when the magazine Scientific American reported that the fault was not with Colt, but with Washington politicians.^[35] With a virtual monopoly, Colt sold his pistols in Europe, where demand was high due to tense international relations. By telling each nation that the others were buying Colt’s pistols, Colt was able to get large orders from many countries who feared falling behind in the arms race.^[37]

A major cause of Colt’s success was vigorous protection of his patent rights. Even though he had the only lawful patent for his type of revolver, scores of imitators copied his work and Colt found himself litigating constantly.^[38] For each one of these cases, Colt’s lawyer, Edward N. Dickerson, deftly exploited the patent system and successfully ended the competition.^[38][39] However, Colt’s zealous protection of his patents greatly impeded firearms development as a whole in the United States. His preoccupation with patent infringement suits slowed his own company’s transition to the cartridge system and prevented other firms from pursuing revolver designs. At the same time, Colt’s policies forced some competing inventors to greater innovation by denying them major features of his mechanism; as a result they created their own.^[40]

Colt knew he had to make his revolvers affordable, as the doom of many great inventions was a high retail price. Colt fixed his prices at a level below his competition to maximize sales volume. From his experience in haggling with government officials, he knew what numbers he would have to generate to make enough profit to invest money in improving his machinery, thereby limiting imitators’ ability to produce a comparable weapon at a lesser price. Although successful at this, for the most part, his preoccupation with marketing strategies and patent protection caused him to miss a great opportunity in firearms development when he dismissed an idea from one of his gunsmiths, Rollin White. White had an idea of a «bored-through» revolver cylinder to allow cartridges (made of paper at the time) to be loaded from the rear of the cylinder. Only one gun fitting White’s design was ever made, and it was not considered practical for the ammunition of the time. A year after White left Colt, Colt’s competitor, Smith & Wesson, attempted to patent a revolver using metallic cartridges only to find that it infringed on White’s patent for the bored-through cylinder. They then licensed that component of White’s patent and kept Colt from being able to build cartridge firearms for almost 20 years.^[41]

Colt’s armories[edit]

Hartford[edit]

Colt purchased a large tract of land beside the Connecticut River, where he built his first factory during 1848, a larger factory named the Colt Armory during 1855, a manor that he called Armsmear during 1856, and employee tenement housing.^[31] He established a ten-hour work day for employees, installed washing stations in the factory, mandated a one-hour lunch period, and built the Charter Oak Hall, where employees could enjoy games, newspapers, and discussion rooms. Colt managed his plant with a military-like discipline: he would dismiss workers for tardiness, sub-par work or even suggesting improvements to his designs.^[42]

Colt hired Elisha K. Root as his chief mechanic in arranging the plant’s machinery. Root had been successful in an earlier venture automating the production of axes and made, bought, or improved jigs, fixtures and profile machinery for Colt. Over the years he developed specialized machinery for stock turning or cutting the rifling in gun barrels. Root has been credited as «the first to build special purpose machinery and apply it to the manufacture of a commercial product».^[43] Colt historian Herbert G. Houze wrote, «had it not been for Root’s inventive genius, Colt’s dream of mass production would never have been realized».^[44]

Thus, Colt’s factory was the first to make use of the concept known as the assembly line.^[45] The idea was not new but was never successful in industry at the time because of the lack of interchangeable parts. Root’s machinery changed that for Colt, since the machines completed as much as 80% of the work and less than 20% of the parts required hand fitting and filing.^[44] Colt’s revolvers were made by machine, but he insisted on final hand finishing and polishing of his revolvers to impart a handmade feel. Colt hired artisan gun makers from Bavaria and developed a commercial use for Waterman Ormsby’s grammagraph to produce «roll-die» engraving on steel, particularly on the cylinders.^[35] He hired Bavarian engraver Gustave Young for fine hand engraving on his more «custom» pieces. In an attempt to attract skilled European-immigrant workers to his plant, Colt built a village near the factory away from the tenements which he named Coltsville and modeled the homes after a village in Potsdam. In an effort to end the flooding from the river he planted German osiers, a type of willow tree, in a 2-mile-long dike. He subsequently built a factory to manufacture wicker furniture made from these trees.^[42]

On June 5, 1856, Colt married Elizabeth Jarvis, the daughter of the Rev. William Jarvis, who lived downriver from Hartford.^[46] The wedding was lavish and featured the ceremony on a steamship overlooking the factory as well as fireworks and rifle salutes. The couple had four children: two daughters and a son who died in infancy and a son born during 1858, Caldwell Hart Colt.^[47]

London[edit]

Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt decided to establish a factory in or near Europe and chose London. He organized a large display of his firearms at the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Hyde Park, London and ingratiated himself by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain’s Master General of the Ordnance.^[48] At one exhibit Colt disassembled ten guns and reassembled ten guns using different parts from different guns. As the world’s major proponent of mass production techniques, Colt delivered a lecture concerning the subject to the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in London.^[49] The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him the Silver Telford Medal.^[50] With help from ICE secretary Charles Manby^[51] Colt established his London operation near Vauxhall Bridge on the River Thames and began production on January 1, 1853.^[52] During a tour of the factory, Charles Dickens was so impressed with the facilities that he recorded his comments of Colt’s revolvers in an 1852 edition of Household Words:^[53]

Among the pistols, we saw Colt’s revolver; and we compared it with the best English revolver. The advantage of Colt’s over the English is, that the user can take a sight; and the disadvantage is, that the weapon requires both hands to fire.

The factory’s machines mass-produced parts that were completely interchangeable and could be put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges by unskilled labor, as opposed to England’s principal gun makers who made each part by hand.^[54] Colt’s London factory remained in operation for only four years. Unwilling to alter his open-top single-action design for the solid frame double-action revolver that the British asked for, Colt sold scarcely 23,000 revolvers to the British Army and Navy. During 1856 he closed the London plant and had the machinery, tooling, and unfinished guns shipped to Hartford.^[55]

Marketing[edit]

When foreign heads of state would not grant him an audience, as he was only a private citizen, he persuaded the governor of the state of Connecticut to make him a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp of the state militia. With this rank, he toured Europe again to promote his revolvers.^[56] He used marketing techniques which were innovative at the time. He frequently gave custom engraved versions of his revolvers to heads of state, military officers, and celebrities such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Hungarian rebel Lajos Kossuth.^[57] Colt commissioned western artist George Catlin to produce a series of paintings depicting exotic scenes in which a Colt weapon was prominently used against Indians, wild animals, or bandits in the earliest form of «product placement» advertisement.^[58] He placed numerous advertisements in the same newspapers; The Knickerbocker published as many as eight in the same edition. Lastly, he hired authors to write stories about his guns for magazines and travel guides.^[42] One of Colt’s biggest acts of self-promotion was the payment to the publishers of United States Magazine $1,120 ($61,439 by 1999 standards) to publish a 29-page fully illustrated story showing the inner workings of his factory.^[33]

After his revolvers had gained acceptance, Colt had his staff search for unsolicited news stories containing mention of his guns that he could excerpt and reprint. He went so far as to hire agents in other states and territories to find such samples, to buy hundreds of copies for himself and to give the editor a free revolver for writing them, particularly if such a story disparaged his competition.^[33] Many of the revolvers Colt gave away as «gifts» had inscriptions such as «Compliments of Col. Colt» or «From the Inventor» engraved on the back straps. Later versions contained his entire signature which was used in many of his advertisements as a centerpiece, using his celebrity as a seeming guarantee of the performance of his weapons. Colt eventually secured a trademark for his signature.^{[citation needed]}

One of his slogans, “God created men, Col. Colt made them equal,” (claiming that any person could, regardless of physical strength, defend themselves with a Colt gun) became a popular adage in American culture.^[59]

Later years and death[edit]

Before the American Civil War, Colt supplied both the North and the South with firearms.^[60] He had been known to sell weapons to warring parties on both sides of other conflicts in Europe and did the same with respect to the war in America. During 1859 Colt considered building an armory in the South and as late as 1861 had sold 2,000 revolvers to Confederate agent John Forsyth.^[61] Although trade with the South had not been restricted at that time, newspapers such as the New York Daily Tribune, The New York Times and the Hartford Daily Courant termed him a Southern sympathizer and traitor to the Union.^[62] In response to these charges, Colt was commissioned as a colonel by the state of Connecticut on May 16, 1861, of the 1st Regiment Colts Revolving Rifles of Connecticut armed with the Colt revolving rifle.^[63] Colt envisioned this unit as being staffed by men more than six feet tall and armed with his weapons. However, the unit was never sent to the field and Colt was discharged on June 20, 1861.^[62]

Samuel Colt died of complications of gout in Hartford on January 10, 1862. He was interred on the property of his private residence Armsmear and reinterred to Cedar Hill Cemetery in 1894.^[64] At the time of his death, Colt’s estate, which he willed to his wife and three-year-old son Caldwell Hart Colt, was estimated to be valued at about $15,000,000 (equivalent to US$407,000,000 in 2021). His professional responsibilities were given to his brother-in-law, Richard Jarvis.^[65][66] The only other person mentioned in Colt’s will was Samuel Caldwell Colt, the son of his brother, John C. Colt.^[67]

Colt historian William Edwards wrote that Samuel Colt had married Caroline Henshaw (who later married his brother, John) in Scotland during 1838, and that the son she bore later was Samuel Colt’s and not his brother John’s.^[67] In a 1953 biography about Samuel Colt based largely on family letters, Edwards wrote that John Colt’s marriage to Caroline during 1841 was a way to legitimize her unborn son as the real father, Samuel Colt, felt she was not fit to be the wife of an industrialist and divorce was a social stigma at the time.^[67] After John’s death, Samuel Colt cared financially for the child, named Samuel Caldwell Colt, with a large allowance, and paid for his tuition in what were described as «the finest private schools.» In correspondence to and about his namesake, Samuel Colt referred to him as his «nephew» in quotes. Historians such as Edwards and Harold Schechter have said this was the elder Colt’s way of letting the world know that the boy was his own son without saying so directly.^[68] After Colt’s death, he left the boy $2 million by 2010 standards. Colt’s widow, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, and her brother, Richard Jarvis contested this. In probate court Caroline’s son Sam produced a valid marriage license showing that Caroline and Samuel Colt were married in Scotland during 1838 and that this document made him a rightful heir to part of Colt’s estate, if not to the Colt Manufacturing Company.^[67][68]

Legacy[edit]

It is estimated that during its first 25 years of manufacturing, Colt’s company produced more than 400,000 revolvers. Before his death, each barrel was stamped: «Address Col. Samuel Colt, New York, US America», or a variation using a London address. Colt did this as New York and London were major cosmopolitan cities and he retained an office in New York at 155 Broadway where he based his salesmen.^[69]

Colt was the first American manufacturer to use art as a marketing tool when he hired Catlin to prominently display Colt firearms in his paintings. He was awarded numerous government contracts after making gifts of his highly embellished and engraved revolvers with exotic grips such as ivory or pearl to government officials. On a visit to Constantinople he gave a custom-engraved and gold inlaid revolver to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdülmecid I, informing him that the Russians were buying his pistols, thus securing a Turkish order for 5,000 pistols; he neglected to tell the Sultan he had used the same tactic with the Russians to elicit an order.^[69]

Apart from gifts and bribes, Colt employed an effective marketing program which comprised sales promotion, publicity, product sampling, and public relations.^[57] He used the newspress to his own advantage by giving revolvers to editors, prompting them to report «all the accidents that occur to the Sharps & other humbug arms», and listing incidents for which Colt weapons had been «well used against bears, Indians, Mexicans, etc».^[70] Colt’s firearms did not always fare well in standardized military tests; he preferred written testimonials from individual soldiers who used his weapons and these were what he most relied on to secure government contracts.^[71]

Colt felt that bad press was just as important as good press, provided that his name and his revolvers received mention. When he opened the London armory, he posted a 14-foot sign on the roof across from Parliament reading: «Colonel Colt’s Pistol Factory» as a publicity stunt, which was noted by the British press. Eventually the British government forced him to remove this sign.^[42] Colt historian Herbert Houze wrote that Colt championed the concept of modernism before the word was invented, he pioneered the use of celebrity endorsements to promote his products, he introduced the phrase «new and improved» to advertising and demonstrated the commercial value of trade-name recognition as a word for «revolver» in French is le colt.^[72] Barbara M. Tucker, professor of history and director of the Center for Connecticut Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, wrote that Colt’s marketing techniques transformed the firearm from a utilitarian object into a symbol of American identity. Tucker added that Colt associated his revolvers with American patriotism, freedom, and individualism while asserting America’s technological supremacy over Europe’s.^[42]

In 1867, Colt’s widow, Elizabeth, had an Episcopal church designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter built as a memorial to him and the three children they lost. The church’s architecture contains guns and gun-smithing tools sculpted in marble to commemorate Colt’s life as an arms maker. In 1896 a parish house was built on the site as a memorial to their son, Caldwell, who died in 1894. In 1975, the Church of the Good Shepherd and Parish House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.^[73]

Colt established libraries and educational programs within his armories for his employees which provided training for several generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century.^[74] Prominent examples included Francis A. Pratt, Amos Whitney, Henry Leland, Edward Bullard, Worcester R. Warner, Charles Brinckerhoff Richards, William Mason and Ambrose Swasey.^[75]

In 2006, Samuel Colt was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.^[76]

Footnotes[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Bern, Keating (1978). The Flamboyant Mr. Colt and His Dealy Six-Shooter. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-12371-6.
• Edmund, Pearson (1930). Instigation of the Devil. New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons.
• Grant, Ellsworth S. (1982). The Colt Legacy. Providence, Rhode Island: Mowbray Company. ISBN 978-0-917218-17-0.

External links[edit]

• The Colt Revolver in the American West at the Autry National Center
• Samuel Colt biography at Netstate.com

Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt in 1855
Born	July 19, 1814 Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	January 10, 1862 (aged 47) Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Resting place	Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Inventor, industrialist, businessman, hunter
Spouse	Elizabeth Hart Jarvis (m. 1856-1862)
Relatives	John C. Colt (brother) Caldwell Hart Colt (son) Samuel P. Colt (nephew)
Awards	Telford Medal
Signature

Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (now Colt’s Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable.

Colt’s first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey, and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. His business affairs improved rapidly after 1847, when the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 revolvers during the American war with Mexico. Later, his firearms were used widely during the settling of the western frontier. Colt died in 1862 as one of the wealthiest men in America.

Colt’s manufacturing methods were sophisticated. His use of interchangeable parts helped him become one of the first to use the assembly line efficiently. Moreover, his innovative use of art, celebrity endorsements, and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer of advertising, product placement, and mass marketing.

Early years (1814–1835)[edit]

Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Christopher Colt (1780–1850), a farmer who had relocated his family to the city after he became a businessman, and Sarah (née Caldwell). His maternal grandfather, Major John Caldwell,^[1] had been an officer of the Continental Army; one of Colt’s earliest possessions was John’s flintlock pistol. Colt’s mother died from tuberculosis when Colt was six years old, and his father married Olivia Sargeant two years later. Colt had three sisters, one of whom died during her childhood. His oldest sister, Margaret, died of tuberculosis at age 19, and the other, Sarah Ann, later committed suicide. One brother, James, became a lawyer; another, Christopher, was a textile merchant. A third brother, John C. Colt, a man of many occupations, was convicted of an 1841 murder and committed suicide on the day he was to be executed.^[2]

At age 11, Colt was indentured to a farmer in Glastonbury, where he did chores and attended school. Here he was introduced to the Compendium of Knowledge, a scientific encyclopedia that he preferred to read rather than his Bible studies. Its articles concerning Robert Fulton and gunpowder motivated Colt throughout his life. He discovered that other inventors in the Compendium had accomplished feats that were once deemed impossible, and he wanted to do the same. Later, after hearing soldiers talk about the success of the double-barreled rifle and the impossibility of a gun that could shoot five or six times without reloading, Colt decided that he would create the «impossible gun».^{[citation needed]}

During 1829, at the age of 15, Colt began working in his father’s textile plant in Ware, Massachusetts, where he had access to tools, materials, and the factory workers’ expertise. Referencing the encyclopedia, Samuel built a homemade galvanic cell and advertised as a Fourth of July event during that year that he would explode a raft on Ware Pond using underwater explosives; although the raft was missed, the explosion was still impressive.^[3] Sent to boarding school, he amused his classmates with pyrotechnics. During 1830, a July 4 accident caused a fire that ended his schooling, and his father sent him away to learn the seaman’s trade.^[3] On a voyage to Calcutta aboard the brig Corvo, Colt had the idea for a type of revolver while at sea, inspired by the capstan, or windlass, which had a ratchet-and-pawl mechanism that he would later say gave him the idea for his revolver designs.^[4][5] On the Corvo, Colt made a wooden model of a pepperbox revolver out of scrap wood. It differed from other pepperbox revolvers at the time in that it allowed the shooter to rotate the cylinder by the action of cocking the hammer, with an attached pawl turning the cylinder, which was then locked firmly in alignment with one of the barrels by a bolt, a great improvement over the pepperbox designs, which required rotating the barrels by hand and hoping for proper indexing and alignment.^{[citation needed]}

When Colt returned to the United States during 1832, he resumed working for his father, who financed the production of two guns, a rifle and a pistol. The first completed pistol exploded when it was fired, but the rifle performed well. His father would not finance any more development, so Samuel needed to find a way to pay for the development of his ideas.^[6] He had learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from the factory chemist of his father’s textile plant, so he took a portable laboratory on tour and earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada, calling himself as «the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta».^[7] Colt thought of himself as a man of science and believed if he could enlighten people about a new idea like nitrous oxide, he could in turn make people more receptive to his new idea concerning a revolver. He started his lectures on street corners and soon began doing the same in lecture halls and museums. As ticket sales decreased, Colt realized that «serious» museum lectures were not what the people wanted to pay money to hear and that it was dramatic stories of salvation and redemption the public craved. While visiting his brother John in Cincinnati, he partnered with sculptor Hiram Powers for his demonstrations with a theme based on The Divine Comedy. Powers made detailed wax sculptures and paintings based on demons, centaurs, and mummies from Dante’s work. Colt constructed fireworks to complete the show, which was a success.^[8] According to Colt historian Robert Lawrence Wilson, the «lectures launched Colt’s celebrated career as a pioneer Madison Avenue-style pitchman».^[9] His public speaking skills were so prized that he was thought to be a doctor and was obligated to cure an apparent cholera epidemic aboard a riverboat by giving his patients a dose of nitrous oxide.^{[citation needed]}

Having saved some money and still wanting to be an inventor as opposed to a «medicine man», Colt made arrangements to begin building guns using proper gunsmiths from Baltimore, Maryland. He abandoned the idea of a multiple-barreled revolver and opted for a single fixed-barrel design with a rotating cylinder. The action of the hammer would align the cylinder bores with the single barrel. He sought the counsel of a friend of his father, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, who loaned him $300 and advised him to perfect his prototype before applying for a patent.^[7] Colt hired a gunsmith by the name of John Pearson to build his revolver. Over the next few years, Colt and Pearson argued about money, but the design improved and during 1835 Colt was ready to apply for his U.S. patent. Ellsworth was now the superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office and advised Colt to file for foreign patents first, as a prior U.S. patent would keep Colt from filing a patent in the United Kingdom. In August 1835, Colt left for England and France to secure his foreign patent.^{[citation needed]}

Colt’s early revolver (1835–43)[edit]

During 1835, Samuel Colt traveled to the United Kingdom, much as had Elisha Collier, a Bostonian who had patented a revolving flintlock there that achieved great popularity.^[10] Despite the reluctance of English officials to issue a patent to Colt, no fault could be found with the gun and he was issued his first patent (number 6909). Upon his return to America, he applied for his U.S. patent for a «revolving gun»; he was granted the patent on February 25, 1836 (later numbered 9430X).^[11] This instrument and patent number 1304, dated August 29, 1836, protected the basic principles of his revolving-breech loading, folding trigger firearm named the Colt Paterson.^[12][13]

With a loan from his cousin Dudley Selden and letters of recommendation from Ellsworth, Colt formed a corporation of venture capitalists in 1836 to bring his idea to market. With the help of the political acquaintances of these venture capitalists, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, was chartered by the New Jersey legislature on March 5, 1836. Colt was given a royalty for each gun sold in exchange for his patent rights and stipulated the return of the rights if the company disbanded.^[14]

Colt never claimed to have invented revolvers; his design was a more practical adaption of Collier’s earlier revolving flintlock incorporating a locking bolt to keep the cylinder aligned with the barrel.^[10] The invention of the percussion cap made ignition more reliable, faster, and safer than the older flintlock design. Colt’s great contribution was the use of interchangeable parts. Knowing that some gun parts were made by machine, he envisioned all the parts of every Colt gun to be interchangeable and made by machine, to be assembled later by hand. His goal was an assembly line.^[15] This is shown by an 1836 letter that Colt wrote to his father in which he said,

The first workman would receive two or three of the most important parts and would affix these and pass them on to the next who would add a part and pass the growing article on to another who would do the same, and so on until the complete arm is put together.^[16]

Colt’s U.S. revolver patent gave him a monopoly of revolver manufacture until 1857.^[17] His was the first practical revolver and the first practical repeating firearm, thanks to progress made in percussion technology. No longer a mere novelty weapon, the revolver became an industrial and cultural legacy, as well as a contribution to the development of war technology, represented ironically by the name of one of his company’s later innovations, the «Peacemaker».^[16]

Early problems and failures[edit]

Although by the end of 1837 the Arms Company had made more than 1,000 weapons, there were no sales. After the Panic of 1837, the company’s underwriters were reluctant to fund the new machinery that Colt needed to make interchangeable parts, so he went on the road to raise money. Demonstrating his gun to people in general stores did not generate the sales volume he needed, so with another loan from his cousin Selden, he went to Washington, D.C., and demonstrated it to President Andrew Jackson. Jackson approved of the gun and wrote Colt a note saying so. With this letter, Colt got a bill approved by Congress endorsing a demonstration for the military, but failed to obtain an appropriation for military purchase of the weapon. A promising order from the state of South Carolina for 50 to 75 pistols was canceled when the company did not produce them quickly enough.^[17]

Constant problems for Colt were the provisions of the Militia Act of 1808, which stated that any arms purchased by a state militia had to be in current service in the United States military.^[18] This act prevented state militias from allocating funds towards the purchase of experimental weapons or foreign weapons.^[19]

Colt imperiled his own company by his reckless spending. Selden often chastised him for using corporate funds to buy an expensive wardrobe or give lavish gifts to potential clients. Selden twice prohibited Colt from using company money for liquor and fancy dinners; Colt thought getting potential customers inebriated would generate more sales.^[20]

The company was briefly saved by the war against the Seminoles in Florida which provided the first sale of Colt’s revolvers and his new revolving rifles. The soldiers in Florida praised the new weapon, but the unusual hammerless design, sixty years ahead of its time, resulted in difficulty in training men who were used to exposed-hammer guns. Consequently, many curious soldiers took the locks apart. This resulted in breakage of parts, stripped screw heads and inoperable guns.^[21] Colt soon reworked his design to leave the firing hammer exposed, but problems continued. During late 1843, after the loss of payment for the Florida pistols, the Paterson plant closed and a public auction was held in New York City to sell the company’s most liquid assets.^[22][23]

Mines and tinfoil[edit]

Colt did not refrain long from manufacturing and began selling underwater electrical detonators and waterproof cable of his own invention. Soon after the failure of the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, he teamed with Samuel Morse to lobby the US government for funds. Colt’s waterproof cable, made from tar-coated copper, proved valuable when Morse ran telegraph lines under lakes, rivers, and bays and made attempts to lay a telegraph line under the Atlantic Ocean.^[24] Morse used the battery from one of Colt’s mines to transmit a telegraph message from Manhattan to Governors Island when his own battery was too weak to send the signal.^[25]

When tensions with the British prompted Congress to appropriate funds for Colt’s project toward the end of 1841, he demonstrated his underwater mines to the US government. During 1842 he used one of the devices to destroy a moving vessel to the satisfaction of the United States Navy and President John Tyler. However, opposition from John Quincy Adams, who was serving as a US Representative from Massachusetts’s 8th congressional district, scuttled the project as «not fair and honest warfare» and termed the Colt mine an «unchristian contraption».^[26]

After this setback, Colt turned his attention to perfecting tinfoil cartridges he had originally designed for use in his revolvers. The standard at the time was to have powder and ball contained in a paper or skin envelope or «cartridge» for ease of loading. However, if the paper got wet it would ruin the powder. Colt tried alternative materials such as rubber cement, but decided to use a thin type of tinfoil. During 1841 he made samples of these cartridges for the army. During tests of the foil cartridges, 25 rounds were shot from a musket without cleaning. When the breech plug was removed from the barrel no fouling from the tin foil was evident. The reception was moderate and the army purchased a few thousand rounds for further testing. During 1843 the army gave Colt an order for 200,000 of the tinfoil cartridges packed 10 to a box for use in muskets.^[23]

With the money made from the cartridges, Colt resumed business with Morse for ideas other than detonating mines. Colt concentrated on manufacturing his waterproof telegraph cable, believing the business would prosper along with Morse’s invention. He began promoting the telegraph companies so he could create a greater market for his cable, for which he was to be paid $50 per mile.^[27] Colt tried to use this revenue to resurrect the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, but could not secure funds from other investors or even his own family. This left Colt time to improve his earlier revolver design and have a prototype built by a gunsmith in New York for his «New and improved revolver». This new revolver had a stationary trigger and had a larger caliber. Colt submitted his single prototype to the War Department as a «Holster revolver».^[23]

Colt’s Patent Manufacturing Company (1847–1860)[edit]

Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers had acquired some of the first Colt revolvers produced during the Seminole War and saw first-hand their effective use as his 15-man unit defeated a larger force of 70 Comanches in Texas. Walker wanted to order Colt revolvers for use by the Rangers in the Mexican–American War, and traveled to New York City in search of Colt. He met Colt in a gunsmith’s shop on January 4, 1847, and ordered 1,000 revolvers.^[28][29] Walker asked for a few changes; the new revolvers would have to hold 6 shots instead of 5, have enough power to kill either a human or a horse with a single shot and be quicker to reload. The large order allowed Colt to establish a new firearm business. Colt hired Eli Whitney Blake, who was established in the arms business, to make his guns.^[30] Colt used his prototype and Walker’s improvements as the basis for a new design. From this new design, Blake produced the first thousand-piece order known as the Colt Walker. The company then received an order for a thousand more; Colt shared the profits at $10 per pistol for both orders.^[30]

With the money he made from the sales of the Walkers and a loan from his cousin, banker Elisha Colt, Colt bought the machinery and tooling from Blake to build his own factory: Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company factory at Hartford.^[31] The first revolving-breech pistols made at the factory were named «Whitneyville-Hartford-Dragoons» and became so popular that the word «Colt» was often used as a generic term for the revolvers.^[29] The Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoons, largely built from leftover Walker parts, are known as the first model in the transition from the Walker to the Dragoon series. Beginning 1848, more contracts followed for what is known now as the Colt Dragoon Revolvers. These models were based on the Walker Colts, and during three generations slight changes to each model showed the evolution of the design. The improvements were 7+1⁄2-inch (190 mm) barrels for accuracy, shorter chambers and an improved loading lever.^[29] The shorter chambers were loaded to 50 grains of powder, instead of 60 grains in the earlier Walkers, to prevent the occurrence of ruptured cylinders.^[29] Finally, a positive catch was installed at the end of the loading lever to prevent the lever from dropping due to recoil.^[29][32]

Besides being used in the war with Mexico, Colt’s revolvers were employed as a sidearm by both civilians and soldiers. Colt’s revolvers were a major tool used during the westward expansion. A revolver which could fire six times without reloading helped soldiers and settlers fend off larger forces which were not armed in the same way. During 1848, Colt introduced smaller versions of his pistols known as Baby Dragoons that were made for civilian use. During 1850 General Sam Houston and General Thomas Jefferson Rusk lobbied Secretary of War William Marcy and President James K. Polk to adopt Colt’s revolvers for the U.S. military. Rusk testified: «Colt’s Repeating Arms are the most efficient weapons in the world and the only weapon which has enabled the frontiersman to defeat the mounted Indian in his own peculiar mode of warfare». Lt. Bedley McDonald, who was a subordinate of Walker when Walker was killed in Mexico, stated that 30 Rangers used Colt’s revolvers to keep 500 Mexicans in check.^[33] Colt used this general design for the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver which was larger than the Baby Dragoon, but not quite as large as the full-sized version. The gun became the standard sidearm for U.S. military officers and proved popular among civilian buyers. After the testimony by Houston and Rusk, the next issue became how quickly Colt could supply the military.^[34] Ever the opportunist, when the War with Mexico was ended, Colt sent agents south of the border to procure sales from the Mexican government.^[35]

Patent extension[edit]

During this period, Colt received an extension on his patent, since he did not collect fees for it during the early years. During 1869, gun makers James Warner and Massachusetts Arms infringed on the patent. Colt sued the companies and the court ordered that Warner and Massachusetts Arms cease revolver production. Colt then threatened to sue Allen & Thurber due to the cylinder design of their double-action pepperbox revolver. However, Colt’s lawyers doubted that this suit would be successful and the case was resolved with a settlement of $15,000. Production of Allen pepperboxes continued until the expiration of Colt’s patent during 1857.^[36] During 1854 Colt struggled for his patent extension with the U.S. Congress, which initiated a special committee to investigate charges that Colt had bribed government officials in securing this extension. By August he was exonerated and the story became national news when the magazine Scientific American reported that the fault was not with Colt, but with Washington politicians.^[35] With a virtual monopoly, Colt sold his pistols in Europe, where demand was high due to tense international relations. By telling each nation that the others were buying Colt’s pistols, Colt was able to get large orders from many countries who feared falling behind in the arms race.^[37]

A major cause of Colt’s success was vigorous protection of his patent rights. Even though he had the only lawful patent for his type of revolver, scores of imitators copied his work and Colt found himself litigating constantly.^[38] For each one of these cases, Colt’s lawyer, Edward N. Dickerson, deftly exploited the patent system and successfully ended the competition.^[38][39] However, Colt’s zealous protection of his patents greatly impeded firearms development as a whole in the United States. His preoccupation with patent infringement suits slowed his own company’s transition to the cartridge system and prevented other firms from pursuing revolver designs. At the same time, Colt’s policies forced some competing inventors to greater innovation by denying them major features of his mechanism; as a result they created their own.^[40]

Colt knew he had to make his revolvers affordable, as the doom of many great inventions was a high retail price. Colt fixed his prices at a level below his competition to maximize sales volume. From his experience in haggling with government officials, he knew what numbers he would have to generate to make enough profit to invest money in improving his machinery, thereby limiting imitators’ ability to produce a comparable weapon at a lesser price. Although successful at this, for the most part, his preoccupation with marketing strategies and patent protection caused him to miss a great opportunity in firearms development when he dismissed an idea from one of his gunsmiths, Rollin White. White had an idea of a «bored-through» revolver cylinder to allow cartridges (made of paper at the time) to be loaded from the rear of the cylinder. Only one gun fitting White’s design was ever made, and it was not considered practical for the ammunition of the time. A year after White left Colt, Colt’s competitor, Smith & Wesson, attempted to patent a revolver using metallic cartridges only to find that it infringed on White’s patent for the bored-through cylinder. They then licensed that component of White’s patent and kept Colt from being able to build cartridge firearms for almost 20 years.^[41]

Colt’s armories[edit]

Hartford[edit]

Colt purchased a large tract of land beside the Connecticut River, where he built his first factory during 1848, a larger factory named the Colt Armory during 1855, a manor that he called Armsmear during 1856, and employee tenement housing.^[31] He established a ten-hour work day for employees, installed washing stations in the factory, mandated a one-hour lunch period, and built the Charter Oak Hall, where employees could enjoy games, newspapers, and discussion rooms. Colt managed his plant with a military-like discipline: he would dismiss workers for tardiness, sub-par work or even suggesting improvements to his designs.^[42]

Colt hired Elisha K. Root as his chief mechanic in arranging the plant’s machinery. Root had been successful in an earlier venture automating the production of axes and made, bought, or improved jigs, fixtures and profile machinery for Colt. Over the years he developed specialized machinery for stock turning or cutting the rifling in gun barrels. Root has been credited as «the first to build special purpose machinery and apply it to the manufacture of a commercial product».^[43] Colt historian Herbert G. Houze wrote, «had it not been for Root’s inventive genius, Colt’s dream of mass production would never have been realized».^[44]

Thus, Colt’s factory was the first to make use of the concept known as the assembly line.^[45] The idea was not new but was never successful in industry at the time because of the lack of interchangeable parts. Root’s machinery changed that for Colt, since the machines completed as much as 80% of the work and less than 20% of the parts required hand fitting and filing.^[44] Colt’s revolvers were made by machine, but he insisted on final hand finishing and polishing of his revolvers to impart a handmade feel. Colt hired artisan gun makers from Bavaria and developed a commercial use for Waterman Ormsby’s grammagraph to produce «roll-die» engraving on steel, particularly on the cylinders.^[35] He hired Bavarian engraver Gustave Young for fine hand engraving on his more «custom» pieces. In an attempt to attract skilled European-immigrant workers to his plant, Colt built a village near the factory away from the tenements which he named Coltsville and modeled the homes after a village in Potsdam. In an effort to end the flooding from the river he planted German osiers, a type of willow tree, in a 2-mile-long dike. He subsequently built a factory to manufacture wicker furniture made from these trees.^[42]

On June 5, 1856, Colt married Elizabeth Jarvis, the daughter of the Rev. William Jarvis, who lived downriver from Hartford.^[46] The wedding was lavish and featured the ceremony on a steamship overlooking the factory as well as fireworks and rifle salutes. The couple had four children: two daughters and a son who died in infancy and a son born during 1858, Caldwell Hart Colt.^[47]

London[edit]

Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt decided to establish a factory in or near Europe and chose London. He organized a large display of his firearms at the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Hyde Park, London and ingratiated himself by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain’s Master General of the Ordnance.^[48] At one exhibit Colt disassembled ten guns and reassembled ten guns using different parts from different guns. As the world’s major proponent of mass production techniques, Colt delivered a lecture concerning the subject to the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) in London.^[49] The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him the Silver Telford Medal.^[50] With help from ICE secretary Charles Manby^[51] Colt established his London operation near Vauxhall Bridge on the River Thames and began production on January 1, 1853.^[52] During a tour of the factory, Charles Dickens was so impressed with the facilities that he recorded his comments of Colt’s revolvers in an 1852 edition of Household Words:^[53]

Among the pistols, we saw Colt’s revolver; and we compared it with the best English revolver. The advantage of Colt’s over the English is, that the user can take a sight; and the disadvantage is, that the weapon requires both hands to fire.

The factory’s machines mass-produced parts that were completely interchangeable and could be put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges by unskilled labor, as opposed to England’s principal gun makers who made each part by hand.^[54] Colt’s London factory remained in operation for only four years. Unwilling to alter his open-top single-action design for the solid frame double-action revolver that the British asked for, Colt sold scarcely 23,000 revolvers to the British Army and Navy. During 1856 he closed the London plant and had the machinery, tooling, and unfinished guns shipped to Hartford.^[55]

Marketing[edit]

When foreign heads of state would not grant him an audience, as he was only a private citizen, he persuaded the governor of the state of Connecticut to make him a lieutenant colonel and aide-de-camp of the state militia. With this rank, he toured Europe again to promote his revolvers.^[56] He used marketing techniques which were innovative at the time. He frequently gave custom engraved versions of his revolvers to heads of state, military officers, and celebrities such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, and Hungarian rebel Lajos Kossuth.^[57] Colt commissioned western artist George Catlin to produce a series of paintings depicting exotic scenes in which a Colt weapon was prominently used against Indians, wild animals, or bandits in the earliest form of «product placement» advertisement.^[58] He placed numerous advertisements in the same newspapers; The Knickerbocker published as many as eight in the same edition. Lastly, he hired authors to write stories about his guns for magazines and travel guides.^[42] One of Colt’s biggest acts of self-promotion was the payment to the publishers of United States Magazine $1,120 ($61,439 by 1999 standards) to publish a 29-page fully illustrated story showing the inner workings of his factory.^[33]

After his revolvers had gained acceptance, Colt had his staff search for unsolicited news stories containing mention of his guns that he could excerpt and reprint. He went so far as to hire agents in other states and territories to find such samples, to buy hundreds of copies for himself and to give the editor a free revolver for writing them, particularly if such a story disparaged his competition.^[33] Many of the revolvers Colt gave away as «gifts» had inscriptions such as «Compliments of Col. Colt» or «From the Inventor» engraved on the back straps. Later versions contained his entire signature which was used in many of his advertisements as a centerpiece, using his celebrity as a seeming guarantee of the performance of his weapons. Colt eventually secured a trademark for his signature.^{[citation needed]}

One of his slogans, “God created men, Col. Colt made them equal,” (claiming that any person could, regardless of physical strength, defend themselves with a Colt gun) became a popular adage in American culture.^[59]

Later years and death[edit]

Before the American Civil War, Colt supplied both the North and the South with firearms.^[60] He had been known to sell weapons to warring parties on both sides of other conflicts in Europe and did the same with respect to the war in America. During 1859 Colt considered building an armory in the South and as late as 1861 had sold 2,000 revolvers to Confederate agent John Forsyth.^[61] Although trade with the South had not been restricted at that time, newspapers such as the New York Daily Tribune, The New York Times and the Hartford Daily Courant termed him a Southern sympathizer and traitor to the Union.^[62] In response to these charges, Colt was commissioned as a colonel by the state of Connecticut on May 16, 1861, of the 1st Regiment Colts Revolving Rifles of Connecticut armed with the Colt revolving rifle.^[63] Colt envisioned this unit as being staffed by men more than six feet tall and armed with his weapons. However, the unit was never sent to the field and Colt was discharged on June 20, 1861.^[62]

Samuel Colt died of complications of gout in Hartford on January 10, 1862. He was interred on the property of his private residence Armsmear and reinterred to Cedar Hill Cemetery in 1894.^[64] At the time of his death, Colt’s estate, which he willed to his wife and three-year-old son Caldwell Hart Colt, was estimated to be valued at about $15,000,000 (equivalent to US$407,000,000 in 2021). His professional responsibilities were given to his brother-in-law, Richard Jarvis.^[65][66] The only other person mentioned in Colt’s will was Samuel Caldwell Colt, the son of his brother, John C. Colt.^[67]

Colt historian William Edwards wrote that Samuel Colt had married Caroline Henshaw (who later married his brother, John) in Scotland during 1838, and that the son she bore later was Samuel Colt’s and not his brother John’s.^[67] In a 1953 biography about Samuel Colt based largely on family letters, Edwards wrote that John Colt’s marriage to Caroline during 1841 was a way to legitimize her unborn son as the real father, Samuel Colt, felt she was not fit to be the wife of an industrialist and divorce was a social stigma at the time.^[67] After John’s death, Samuel Colt cared financially for the child, named Samuel Caldwell Colt, with a large allowance, and paid for his tuition in what were described as «the finest private schools.» In correspondence to and about his namesake, Samuel Colt referred to him as his «nephew» in quotes. Historians such as Edwards and Harold Schechter have said this was the elder Colt’s way of letting the world know that the boy was his own son without saying so directly.^[68] After Colt’s death, he left the boy $2 million by 2010 standards. Colt’s widow, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, and her brother, Richard Jarvis contested this. In probate court Caroline’s son Sam produced a valid marriage license showing that Caroline and Samuel Colt were married in Scotland during 1838 and that this document made him a rightful heir to part of Colt’s estate, if not to the Colt Manufacturing Company.^[67][68]

Legacy[edit]

It is estimated that during its first 25 years of manufacturing, Colt’s company produced more than 400,000 revolvers. Before his death, each barrel was stamped: «Address Col. Samuel Colt, New York, US America», or a variation using a London address. Colt did this as New York and London were major cosmopolitan cities and he retained an office in New York at 155 Broadway where he based his salesmen.^[69]

Colt was the first American manufacturer to use art as a marketing tool when he hired Catlin to prominently display Colt firearms in his paintings. He was awarded numerous government contracts after making gifts of his highly embellished and engraved revolvers with exotic grips such as ivory or pearl to government officials. On a visit to Constantinople he gave a custom-engraved and gold inlaid revolver to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Abdülmecid I, informing him that the Russians were buying his pistols, thus securing a Turkish order for 5,000 pistols; he neglected to tell the Sultan he had used the same tactic with the Russians to elicit an order.^[69]

Apart from gifts and bribes, Colt employed an effective marketing program which comprised sales promotion, publicity, product sampling, and public relations.^[57] He used the newspress to his own advantage by giving revolvers to editors, prompting them to report «all the accidents that occur to the Sharps & other humbug arms», and listing incidents for which Colt weapons had been «well used against bears, Indians, Mexicans, etc».^[70] Colt’s firearms did not always fare well in standardized military tests; he preferred written testimonials from individual soldiers who used his weapons and these were what he most relied on to secure government contracts.^[71]

Colt felt that bad press was just as important as good press, provided that his name and his revolvers received mention. When he opened the London armory, he posted a 14-foot sign on the roof across from Parliament reading: «Colonel Colt’s Pistol Factory» as a publicity stunt, which was noted by the British press. Eventually the British government forced him to remove this sign.^[42] Colt historian Herbert Houze wrote that Colt championed the concept of modernism before the word was invented, he pioneered the use of celebrity endorsements to promote his products, he introduced the phrase «new and improved» to advertising and demonstrated the commercial value of trade-name recognition as a word for «revolver» in French is le colt.^[72] Barbara M. Tucker, professor of history and director of the Center for Connecticut Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University, wrote that Colt’s marketing techniques transformed the firearm from a utilitarian object into a symbol of American identity. Tucker added that Colt associated his revolvers with American patriotism, freedom, and individualism while asserting America’s technological supremacy over Europe’s.^[42]

In 1867, Colt’s widow, Elizabeth, had an Episcopal church designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter built as a memorial to him and the three children they lost. The church’s architecture contains guns and gun-smithing tools sculpted in marble to commemorate Colt’s life as an arms maker. In 1896 a parish house was built on the site as a memorial to their son, Caldwell, who died in 1894. In 1975, the Church of the Good Shepherd and Parish House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.^[73]

Colt established libraries and educational programs within his armories for his employees which provided training for several generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century.^[74] Prominent examples included Francis A. Pratt, Amos Whitney, Henry Leland, Edward Bullard, Worcester R. Warner, Charles Brinckerhoff Richards, William Mason and Ambrose Swasey.^[75]

In 2006, Samuel Colt was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.^[76]

Footnotes[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Bern, Keating (1978). The Flamboyant Mr. Colt and His Dealy Six-Shooter. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-12371-6.
• Edmund, Pearson (1930). Instigation of the Devil. New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons.
• Grant, Ellsworth S. (1982). The Colt Legacy. Providence, Rhode Island: Mowbray Company. ISBN 978-0-917218-17-0.

External links[edit]

• The Colt Revolver in the American West at the Autry National Center
• Samuel Colt biography at Netstate.com

Морфемный разбор слова:

Однокоренные слова к слову:

Употребление прописных букв

1. Чёрный пёс А рапка (кличка животного), обычно сопровождавший П авла Е вграфовича (имя, отчество) в путешествии, сегодня идти отказался. 2. Многочисленные переводы его произведений находятся во всех наиболее известных журналах того времени: « М осковском телеграфе», « В естнике Е вропы», « А тенее», « С ыне О течества», « Т елескопе» и « Л итературной газете» (названия периодических изданий). 3. Походить я стал на Д он- Ж уана (имя литературного героя), как заправский ветреный поэт. 4. В своей квартире на С ретенском б ульваре (название улицы) я обычно просиживал часа два в кресле перед письменным столом. 5. Озеро Г орных Д у́хов (географическое название) продолжало стоять перед моим внутренним взором. 6. У них на М асленице (название религиозного праздника) жирной водились русские блины; два раза в год они говели; любили круглые качели, подблюдны песни, хоровод; в д ень Т роицын (название религиозного праздника), когда народ, зевая, слушает молебен, умильно на пучок зари они роняли слёзки три. 7. И в Л етний сад (название парка) гулять водил. 8. Был я недавно в стенах В атикана (название церковного учреждения), по К олизею (название исторического памятника) две ночи бродил, видел я в В ене (название города) святого С тефана (имя святого), что же. всё это народ сотворил? 9. Ни Л аврентьевский, ни И патьевский списки (названия памятников литературы) её не были ещё найдены. Байер слышал про снятую по заказу П етра П ервого (имя императора) копию К енигсбергского списка (название литературного памятника) конца XV в. и считал её автором аббата Ф еодосия П ечерского (имя и прозвище), будто бы современника В ладимира М ономаха (имя и прозвище).

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Поиск ответа

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Словарная рекомендация — писать со строчной буквы без кавычек.

Доброго дня! Как следует писать название п истолет ных патронов — в кавычках и со строчной? Например: Он взял в ладонь штук пять «люгеров». Спасибо.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

В бытовом употреблении можно писать без кавычек, с маленькой буквы: штук пять люгеров.

Как правильно: п истолет калибра или калибром?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Правильно: п истолет такого-то калибра.

Здравствуйте. Со строчной или прописной пишется «макаров» в значении «п истолет Макарова»? Ты не видел, где мой «Макаров»?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Слово макаров, используемое в разговорной речи в значении ‘п истолет Макарова’, пишется строчными.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

«Достоверно можно сказать только одно – Сталин не выносил п истолет ного грохота.» Почему стоит тире?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Здравствуйте, уважаемые специалисты!

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Это сложное слово, обе части которого склоняются.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

С точки зрения правил русского правописания уместно использование дефиса.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Да, названия марок технических изделий (в том числе оружия) заключаются в кавычки. Правильно: п истолет «Глок-17».

Как правильно написать:
1. Водяной п истолет
2. Водный п истолет
Спасибо!

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Как правильно: п истолет Макарова? п истолет системы наган?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Корректно: _п истолет Макарова, револьвер системы Нагана_.

Источник

Поиск ответа

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Словарная рекомендация — писать со строчной буквы без кавычек.

Доброго дня! Как следует писать название п истолет ных патронов — в кавычках и со строчной? Например: Он взял в ладонь штук пять «люгеров». Спасибо.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

В бытовом употреблении можно писать без кавычек, с маленькой буквы: штук пять люгеров.

Как правильно: п истолет калибра или калибром?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Правильно: п истолет такого-то калибра.

Здравствуйте. Со строчной или прописной пишется «макаров» в значении «п истолет Макарова»? Ты не видел, где мой «Макаров»?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Слово макаров, используемое в разговорной речи в значении ‘п истолет Макарова’, пишется строчными.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

«Достоверно можно сказать только одно – Сталин не выносил п истолет ного грохота.» Почему стоит тире?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Здравствуйте, уважаемые специалисты!

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Это сложное слово, обе части которого склоняются.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

С точки зрения правил русского правописания уместно использование дефиса.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Да, названия марок технических изделий (в том числе оружия) заключаются в кавычки. Правильно: п истолет «Глок-17».

Как правильно написать:
1. Водяной п истолет
2. Водный п истолет
Спасибо!

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Как правильно: п истолет Макарова? п истолет системы наган?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Корректно: _п истолет Макарова, револьвер системы Нагана_.

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Всего найдено: 7

Здравствуйте, уважаемая Грамота! Хотелось бы уточнить, как верно написать в русском варианте японское имя Умеко/Умэко? Стоит ли брать во внимание написание «Мериме», «аниме» или же в этом случае нет правил, на которые стоит опираться? Заранее благодарю за ответ.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Правило существует для конца слов. В конце иноязычных слов после как твердых, так и мягких согласных пишется буква е, напр.: алиготе, амбре, анжанте, антре, апплике, аутодафе, безе, буриме, бурре, галифе, глясе, гофре, декольте, де-юре, кабаре, канапе, карате, каре, консоме, купе, кураре, кюре, макраме, мачете, моралите, нотабене, падре, пенсне, пике, пирке, плиссе, подшофе, пюре, резюме, реноме, руте, саке, соте, суаре, сюзане, тире, удэге, форте, фрикасе, фуэте, экспозе, эмансипе, эссе (кроме удэ, мохэ).

О собственных именах в правилах русской орфографии говорится, что во многих именах иноязычного происхождения пишется буква э. Как передавать по-русски японское имя, нужно спросить у специалистов по передаче японских собственных имен. Мы можем только констатировать, что в текстах встречаются оба варианта. 

Отметьте твердость/мягкость произношения согласных перед «е» Астероид, бифштекс, декольте, дельта, сепсис, сессия, синтез, тезис, термос, тенденция.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Мы не выполняем домашние задания. Вам нужно воспользоваться орфоэпическим словарем, также может быть полезен ресурс «Проверка слова». 

Уважаемая грамота. Растолкуйте пожалуйста, все-таки слова «хаки», «декольте»» клеш»,» гофре» существительные или прилагательные. На» грамоте» вроде как существительные (пометка С.) А по этой статье прилагательные.
http://rusgram.narod.ru/1294-1314.html
Растолкуйте пожалуйста.
С Уважением Швейк.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Словарная помета «с.» означает не существительное, а средний род — в том случае, когда слово выступает в роли существительного.

Все названные Вами слова могут употребляться и как прилагательные (несогласованные определения), и как существительные.

Добрый день!
Завтра сдаем газету — возник срочный вопрос (прописная-строчная): пистолет «оса», пистолет «стрела», винтовка «сайга» и т. п. или все же с большой? ОЧЕНЬ рассчитываем на ОПЕРАТИВНОСТЬ!
Вопрос возник, поскольку в «Справочном бюро» встречаются разночтения.
Кроме того, столкнулись с еще одним разночтением в «Справке»: «пистолет системы браунинг», но «пистолет системы Нагана» — как быть в этом случае: браунинг (в кавычках / без) — …системы Браунинга; кольт — …системы Кольта?
С искренней благодарностью,

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Верно написание: _пистолет «Оса», пистолет «Стрела», винтовка «Сайга»_, так как эти названия являются условными. Слова _браунинг, наган, кольт и пр._ пишутся со строчной буквы, если имеются в виду виды оружия, и с прописной, если имеются в виду фамилии конструкторов.

Помогите пожадуйста понять как делается это задание. Приведите пример с разбором слов. Мягко или твердо произносятся согласные перед звуком [э] в следующих заимствованных словах? В каких словах допускается вариантное произношение? Айсберг Бактерия Деликатес
Дельта Декан Депрессия Интервью Кофе Кодекс Модель
Музей Нетто Одесский Орхидея Пантера Сессия Свитер
Терапевт Термос Энергия Адекватный Анестезия Бутерброд
Бассейн Декольте Детектив Сейф Тезис Шоссейный. пожалуйста, разберите хотя бы некоторые из слов. огромное спасибо.

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Вам помогут словари, представленные в http://dic.gramota.ru/search.php?word=%E4%E5%EB%FC%F2%E0&lop=x&gorb=x&efr=x&ag=x&zar=x&ab=x&sin=x&lv=x&pe=x&az=x [окне «Проверка слова»].

«Парфюм следует наносить на тот участок кожи, который выделяет больше всего тепла, — сгибы локтей или колен, декольте, зона за мочками ушей». Правильно ли расставлены знаки преипнания?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Лучше: _Парфюм следует наносить на те участки кожи, которые выделяют больше всего тепла: сгибы локтей или колен, декольте, зона за мочками ушей._

Как правильно говорить декольте или дэкольте?

Ответ справочной службы русского языка

Слово _декольте_ произносится с твердыми _[дэ]_ и _[тэ]_.

Слово «Кольт» имеет и другие значения.

Сэмюэл Кольт (Самуи́л Кольт, англ. Samuel Colt; 19 июля 1814 Хартфорд, штат Коннектикут — 10 января 1862, там же) — американский оружейник, изобретатель и промышленник, основатель компании Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (сейчас Colt’s Manufacturing Company). Происходил из аристократической и достаточно богатой семьи, но независимо от этого основал компанию сам. Наибольшей известностью пользуется как реформатор револьверного оружия: в 1835 году изобрёл капсульный револьвер, который быстро потеснил другие системы и дал толчок для создания револьверов под унитарный металлический патрон^[5].

Биография

В шестнадцать лет бежал из отцовского дома в Индию и во время пути сделал деревянную модель того, что потом получило название револьвера. Вернувшись, он прошёл курс химии, читал лекции по ней в Соединенных Штатах и Канаде, в 1835 посетил Европу и получил патенты на своё изобретение в Лондоне и Париже.
По возвращении в США Кольт подал патентную заявку на «барабанный пистолет» («revolving gun»), который был им получен 25 февраля 1836 года (впоследствии получил номер 9430X)^[6]. Этим патентом, а также патентом № 1304 от 29 августа 1836 года были защищены основные принципы оружия с вращающейся казённой частью в сочетании с ударно-спусковым механизмом, ставшего знаменитым под именем «Кольт Патерсон»^[7][8].

Это оружие он сконструировал вместе c капитаном Сэмюэлем Уокером (Samuel Hamilton Walker) (1817—1847). Капитан Уокер рано погиб на войне в Мексике. Один из вариантов револьвера был назван в его честь, Walker. В разработке оружия также участвовал оружейник Джон Пирсон, который изготовил по заказу Кольта первый прототип револьвера, за что некоторые предлагают считать именно Пирсона фактическим изобретателем этого оружия ^[9]

Основал компанию для производства револьверов, но в 1842 пережил банкротство; 5 лет подряд револьверы не производились и стали большой редкостью.

Когда же с началом американо-мексиканской войны правительство заказало изобретателю сразу тысячу револьверов, ему пришлось изготовить новую модель, так как нигде нельзя было отыскать экземпляра из ранее производившихся компанией. Этот заказ стал началом благополучия Кольта. Небольшую мастерскую в Витнейвилсе он заменил большой в Хартфорде, а в 1852 на мелях реки Коннектикут построил громадную фабрику, производство на которой удвоилось уже к 1861 году. Очень скоро предприниматель вышел на международный уровень. Так, значительные поставки револьверов осуществлялись в Россию и Англию.

Существует известное выражение, отражающее значение изобретения Сэмюэла Кольта для становления демократии в США: «Бог создал людей сильными и слабыми. Сэмюэл Кольт сделал их равными». Один из вариантов этой фразы: «Авраам Линкольн дал людям свободу, а полковник Кольт уравнял их шансы».

С началом Гражданской войны Кольт создал вооружённый отряд из своих рабочих под своим же командованием (тогда же он присвоил себе звание полковника, хотя никогда в армии не служил), с которым рассчитывал отправиться на фронт, чтобы поддержать северян. Однако он внезапно умер в родном Хартфорде в возрасте 47 лет, как написали тогдашние газеты, «от естественных причин». Похороны были обустроены за государственный счёт. Он оставил после себя состояние, оценённое в 15 миллионов долларов, что равняется примерно 300 миллионов долларов на сегодняшние деньги. Оружейный бизнес был унаследован его вдовой, Элизабет Харт Джарвис, и её семьёй. Компания Кольта перешла под руководство группы инвесторов в 1901 году.

Сэмюэл Кольт и Российская империя

Сэмюел Кольт поддерживал деловые отношения с Россией ещё до Крымской войны. Представитель России на оружейном заводе Кольта в Хартфорде генерал А. П. Горлов в течение ряда лет сотрудничал с Кольтом в производстве берданок для русской армии. В 1856 году Кольт прибыл в Санкт-Петербург для ведения переговоров о приобретении Россией выпускаемого на его предприятиях оружия, присутствовал на коронации императора Александра II, встречался с великим князем Константином. Заключил с правительством России контракт на поставку русской армии ружей. Один из русских офицеров прибыл в Нью-Йорк с Кольтом под видом его камердинера и подготовил отправку в Россию 50 тысяч ружей, замаскированных в кипах хлопка. Подписанный с Кольтом контракт был вскоре аннулирован, что привело к подаче им судебного иска к России и передаче дела в арбитражный суд (1857 год). Дело кончилось тем, что в результате переговоров был подписан новый, более выгодный для Кольта контракт, предусматривавший начало производства револьверов системы «Кольт» в России с использованием американского оборудования, станков и чертежей. Удовлетворённый новым контрактом, Кольт преподнёс Александру II изготовленный по специальному заказу набор ружей и пистолетов. В 1870-х годах русские военные предпочли револьверам системы «Кольт» револьверы системы «Смит-Вессон»^[10].

В культуре

В фильме «Назад в будущее 3» был упомянут Сэмюэл Кольт, как изобретатель нового револьвера, из которого позже стрелял Марти МакФлай в тире.

В американском сериале «Сверхъестественное» (англ. — Supernatural) показывается и используется револьвер, созданный Сэмюэлем Кольтом, в нем существует всего 5 сверхъестественных существ, которых Кольт не способен убить. Также в одной из серий показан и сам Сэмюэл.

См. также

• Colt’s Manufacturing Company
• Пистолеты и револьверы Кольт
• Револьвер

Примечания

Источники

• Кольт, Самуил // Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона : в 86 т. (82 т. и 4 доп.). — СПб., 1890—1907.

Ссылки

• Сэмюэль Кольт: за что его называли «великим уравнителем»?
• Самюэль Кольт (оружейник)
• Сэмюэл Кольт на www.gewehr.ru

Литература

• Ян Хогг, Джон Уикс. Все пистолеты мира / Полный иллюстрированный справочник пистолетов и револьверов. — М.: Эксмо-Пресс, 1999. — ISBN 5-04-000401-X.

Эта страница в последний раз была отредактирована 10 декабря 2022 в 22:17.

Как только страница обновилась в Википедии она обновляется в Вики 2.
Обычно почти сразу, изредка в течении часа.

19 июля 1814 г в городке Хартфорде (шт. Коннектикут), родился известный американский инженер, оружейник, изобретатель и промышленник, легенда Америки, Сэмюэл Кольт (Samuel Colt). Наибольшей известностью пользуется как реформатор револьверного оружия: в 1835 г. изобрёл капсюльный револьвер, который быстро потеснил другие системы и дал толчок для создания револьверов под унитарный металлический патрон.

Его отец, Кристофер Кольт, владевший фабрикой тканей, был богат, но воспитывал наследника по-спартански — Сэмюэл работал на семейном предприятии с 9 лет. Именно там он создает свой первый пистолет — четырёхствольный, стрелявший одновременно четырьмя пулями. Его первое творение было весьма тяжелым, а отдача такая сильная, что могла покалечить стрелявшего.

В 15 лет Сэмюэл поступает в Амхерский университет, но проучился он недолго. За пожар, учиненный в университетском здании Кольт был отчислен. Он бежал из отцовского дома в Индию. Будущий создатель легендарного револьвера нанимается матросом на бриг «Corvo«, торговое судно совершавшее рейсы в Индию. Наблюдая за устройством корабельного руля, любознательный юноша решил использовать аналогичный механизм для создания многозарядного пистолета и во время пути сделал деревянную модель того, что потом получило название револьвера. По другой версии мысль заменить ружейный замок вращающимся барабаном пришла Сэму в голову, когда он наблюдал за работой кабестана — механизма для выбирания якорных или швартовых канатов. Как бы то ни было, автором этого революционного инженерного решения был именно Сэмюэл Кольт.

Вернувшись, он прошёл курс химии, читал лекции по ней в Соединенных Штатах и Канаде. Пробивало себе дорогу новое изобретение нелегко. Но изобретатель был настойчив. В 1835 г. Сэм побывал в Европе и получил английский и французский патенты на свое изобретение — барабан для зарядов револьвера. По возвращении в США он подал патентную заявку на «барабанный пистолет» («revolving gun»), который был им получен 25 февраля 1836 года (впоследствии получил номер 9430X). Этим патентом, а также патентом № 1304 от 29 августа 1836 года, были защищены основные принципы оружия с вращающейся казённой частью, в сочетании с ударно-спусковым механизмом ставшего знаменитым под именем «Кольт Патерсон».

Годом ранее с помощью дяди-бизнесмена он открывает компанию для производства револьверов «Patent Arms Manufacturing Co» и оружейный завод в г. Патерсоне (шт. Нью-Джерси). Первую модель револьвера поэтому так и назвали — » Colt-Paterson«. Но в скором времени приобрел прозвище «Техас» за свою популярность среди жителей этого штата. Начало производства 1836 год. Пятизарядный, ударно-спусковой механизм у этой модели был простого (одиночного) действия: стрелку перед каждым выстрелом нужно было отвести пальцем курок назад. Это первое более или менее надёжное стрелковое многозарядное оружие.

Составные части Кольта «Патерсон»:
Action cover — защитная крышка
Arbor — ось
Bolt — шкворень
Bolt spring — пружина шкворня
Breach — казённик
Breach Screw — ударно-спусковой механизм в сборе
Cylinder — барабан
Frame — рамка
Hammer — курок
Hand — рычаг
Hand spring — пружина рычага
Main spring — главная пружина
Sear — шептало
Trigger — спусковой крючок
Trigger spring — пружина спускового крючка
Wedge — фиксатор ствола
Врезка: положение пружин в корпусе собранного револьвера

Комбинированный инструмент для «Патерсона»: рычаг-шомпол, ключ для снятия брандтрубок, игла для прочистки брандрубок от порохового нагара, отвёртка.

Однако изделие Кольта распродавалось очень маленькими партиями, редко превышавшими 100 штук. Дело в том, что американская армия отказалась покупать револьверы, объявив их «вчерашним днем». Пять лет спустя завод был закрыт и в в 1842 году «Patent Arms Manufacturing Co» оказалась на грани банкротство. 5 лет подряд револьверы не производились и стали большой редкостью.
Пытаясь найти средства для возобновления производства револьверов, Кольт приступил к экспериментам по созданию подводной мины и вскоре разработал мину с электрическим взрывателем, совместно с Сэмюэлем Морзе они наладили выпуск подводных телефонных кабелей.

Но в 1844 году, спустя 2 года после закрытия фабрики произошел случай, изменивший отношение к револьверам и видимо повлиявший на судьбу Кольта и его детища. 15 техасских рейнджеров под командованием Джона Коффи Хейза столкнулись с превосходящими силами отряда команчей (около 80 индейцев). Вооруженные «Кольтами Патерсонами» техасцы перестреляли половину нападавших, а остальные обратились в бегство. Так револьверы продемонстрировали свое преимущество — с однозарядным оружием такое не удалось бы.

John Coffee Hays

Штурм Чапультепека. Литография А. Ж.-Б. Байо по рисунку К. Небеля, 1851 г.

В 1846 году началась Американо-мексиканская война, и коллега Хейза, рейнджер Сэм Уокер пожелал вооружить своих людей револьверами Кольта, и отправился в Нью-Йорк на поиски изобретателя.

Samuel Hamilton Walker

Вновь оружейный завод Кольта открылся только в 1847 году, когда американская армия готовилась к войне с Мексикой, правительство срочно заказало Кольту тысячу новых, модифицированных револьверов. так как оказалось, что нигде нельзя было отыскать экземпляра, ранее производившихся компанией. Этот заказ стал началом благополучия Кольта.

Под этот заказ правительства Кольт и его компаньон капитан Уокер создают новую модель револьвера «Colt Walker«. После того, как новенькие револьверы поступили на вооружение армии, имя Кольта стало известно всей Америке.

В 1852 он получил большой правительственный заказ на револьверы для морских офицеров.

Colt Navy (1851)

Небольшую мастерскую в Витнейвилсе заменил большой в Хартфорде. В том же году Кольт купил «Южные луга» — пустошь близ Хартфорда, и в 1855 г. построил собственный оружейный завод, оборудованный по последнему слову науки и техники. Отсюда громадные объёмы револьверов ежегодно стали рассылаться также в Россию и Англию.
Хорошо платил рабочим, устроил для них библиотеку и даже любительский театр, в котором сам играл.

Компания Кольта, в 1855 году сменившая название на «Colt`s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company», прославила Хартфорд, поскольку ее продукцией вооружилась вся Америка(уже в первый год завод выпускал до 150 «стволов» в день). А ее глава, получивший от губернатора штата Коннектикут звание полковника (за поддержку на выборах), в скором времени вошел в десятку самых удачливых промышленников Америки.

Colt Army (1860)

В 1861 году началась Гражданская война между Севером и Югом. Время Кольта, который с одинаковым рвением снабжал как своих «родных» Янки так и Конфедератов. Если в конфликте с Мексикой США использовали 1000 револьверов, то теперь счет шел на десятки тысяч стволов. Однако человек, давший конфликтующим сторонам великолепное оружие, до конца войны не дожил.

Он внезапно умер в родном Хартфорде, как написали тогдашние газеты, «от естественных причин» в возрасте 47 лет. Похороны были обустроены за государственный счет. Он оставил после себя состояние, оценённое в 15 миллионов долларов, что равняется примерно 300 миллионов долларов на сегодняшние деньги. Его бизнес был унаследован его вдовой — Элизабет Харт Джарвис и её семьёй. Компания Кольта перешла под руководство группы инвесторов в 1901 г.

Сегодня компания Colt остается одним из ведущих производителей огнестрельного оружия. Среди хитов марки — армейский «долгожитель», пистолет » Colt 1911″ 45го калибра и знаменитая штурмовая винтовка M16. Сэмюэль Кольт является легендой и символом США, а слово «кольт» стало одним из синонимов револьвера.

Существует известное выражение, отражающее значение изобретения Сэмюэла Кольта для становления демократии в США: «Бог создал людей сильными и слабыми. Сэмюэл Кольт сделал их равными». Один из вариантов этой фразы: «Авраам Линкольн дал людям свободу, а полковник Кольт уравнял их шансы».

Colt Paterson (1836)

Первая модель револьвера Кольта. Пятизарядный, ударно-спусковой механизм у этой модели был простого (одиночного) действия с капсюльной системой воспламенения: стрелку перед каждым выстрелом нужно было отвести пальцем курок назад. Это первое более или менее надёжное стрелковое многозарядное оружие.

Рама револьвера открытая, ударно-спусковой механизм одинарного действия. Спусковая скоба отсутствует, спусковой крючок скрытый. При взводе курка спусковой крючок выходит из паза рамки. Прицельные приспособления представляют собой мушку на стволе и целика выполненного в виде прорези на курке.

Colt Walker (1847)

Кольт Уолкер 1847 года
Получил название по имени заказчика крупной партии в тысячу «кольтов» улучшенной конструкции капитана техасских рейнджеров С. Уолкера. Начало производства 1847 год, первая партия была изготовлена по заказу армии США, участвовавшей тогда в американо-мексиканской войне. Кольт Уолкер это шестизарядный револьвер 44-го калибра общей длиной 390 мм с длиной ствола 230 мм и усовершенствованными ударно-спусковым механизмом и спусковой скобой. Это был первый «кольт», изготовлявшийся из стандартных взаимозаменяемых деталей. Любимый револьвер Клинта Иствуда.

Colt Model 1848 Percussion Army Revolver — револьвер .44 калибра, разработанный Сэмюэлом Кольтом для конных стрелков американской армии (U.S. Army’s Mounted Rifles), также известных как драгуны (dragoons). Этот револьвер был разработан как решение многочисленных проблем, с которыми сталкивались в модели Walker. Хотя револьвер был введён после мексиканско-американской войны он стал популярным среди гражданских лиц в течение 1850-х и 60-х, и также использовалось во время американской гражданской войны.

В том же году Кольт выпустил флотский кольт 1848 (более популярным был образец 1851), по сути, немного уменьшенная и немного модернизированная копия драгунского кольта. Ствол у флотского кольта обычно чуть длиннее и восьмигранной формы, а у драгунского ствол круглый и покороче; Флотский кольт немного легче, чем драгунский; у драгунского немного массивнее задняя часть шомпола, в отличие от флотского. А отличия от предыдущего кольта Walker заключались только в том, что Драгун легче и у него есть фиксатор шомпола.

Colt Navy (1851)

Colt Navy 1851 года
Модель предполагалась для вооружения офицеров Военно-морского флота Северо-американских Соединённых Штатов. Это была по сути уменьшенная версия «драгунского кольта». На подобных револьверах можно было встретить гравировку в морской тематике. Что интересно, флотский кольт не обладал мушкой, мол на море и на корабле целиться не надо. Флотский кольт относительно легче и меньше, хотя все равно обладал значительными размерами. Визуально отличить флотский кольт от драгунского тяжело. Стрелял пулями 44-го калибра. Оружие обладало значительными размерами. Одно из самых популярных револьверов Кольта в 50-х годах.
Револьвер имел огромную популярность не только среди военнослужащих на море, но и среди гражданских лиц на суше. Двумя такими револьверами 36 калибра был вооружён Дикий Билл Хикок

Colt Army (1860)

Colt Army 1860 года
Это было, пожалуй, самое популярное оружие на Гражданской войне. Этот револьвер заряжался с передней части барабана с помощью шомпола, так что стрелкам приходилось иметь при себе бумажные патроны. Для того, чтобы избежать самопроизвольного выстрела рекомендовалось держать камору барабана, находящуюся напротив ствола, пустой. Перезарядка осуществлялась за счёт поочерёдной закладки зарядов, как, впрочем, и любое другое капсюльное оружие. Револьвер пришёл на смену третьему «Драгунскому» кольту (Colt Dragoon). Его стоимость была около 13 долларов, что дороже, чем остальные револьверы того времени. Обычно делался одинарного действия, хотя были и переделки данного револьвера в «самовзводник».

Colt Model 1873, U.S. Artillery Model

Colt Single Action Army (Peacemaker) (1873)
Легендарный револьвер «Дикого Запада». Внешний вид оставался неизменным с 1873 года. Компания Colt прекращала его производство два раза, но возобновляля в связи с большим спросом и производит до сих пор. Шестизарядный кольт с ручным взводом курка, ударно-спусковой механизм одинарного действия, хотя из него можно было стрелять довольно таки скорострельно, взводя курок левой рукой. Несмотря на наличие шести камор, пистолет обычно заряжался пятью патронами — камора напротив ствола оставлялась пустой во избежание непроизвольного выстрела оружия. Выпускался под патроны более чем 30 калибров, от 0.22 до 0.45, с различной длиной ствола. Оснащён боковым стержневым эжектором. У него также есть ещё 2 названия: Colt single action army (сокращенно Colt SAA) или кольт 1873. «Миротворец» — это всего лишь «прозвище револьвера», ибо там, где он использовался, быстро возникал мир. Считается одним из символов «Дикого Запада», так как им пользовался почти каждый, а также человек-легенда Уайетт Эрп.

Уайетт Эрп

Револьверы двойного действия
Colt Detective Special (1927)
Цельнорамный из углеродистой стали короткоствольный шестизарядный револьвер с ударно-спусковым механизмом двойного действия. Как следует из названия, оружие такого класса ориентировано на скрытое ношение и применение преимущественно полицейскими, одетыми в гражданское — детективами а также сотрудниками спецслужб. Впервые представленный в 1927 году револьвер не был похож на существующие тогда на рынке другие образцы стрелкового оружия скрытого ношения, которые имели переломную раму и могли стрелять маломощными патронами или были больше револьверов с укорачиваемыми стволом и рукояткой.

Colt Cobra (1950)

Colt Cobra .38 Special первой серии выпуска

Начало производства 1950 год. Конструкция револьвера Colt Cobra основана на D-рамке, базовой для всего семейства Detective Spec., однако выполнена из более лёгкого алюминиевого сплава. Револьвер, как и основной Detective Spec., производился для стрельбы патроном калибра .32 Colt NP, .38 Colt NP и .38 Spl., а также .22LR. Версия под патрон .38Spl изготавливалась в вариантах со стволом длиной 2, 3 и 4 дюйма, версия под патрон .22LR — только с трёхдюймовым стволом.
С 1973 года (с ним связывают начало выпуска второй серии Cobra) выпускались револьверы только под патрон .38Spl, а в нижней части ствола револьвера добавился пенал стержня экстрактора. Производство прекращено в 1981 году.

Colt Python (1955)

Шестизарядный револьвер с ударно-спусковым механизмом двойного действия, выполненный под патрон калибра .357 Магнум, Colt Python является одним из самых красивых и харизматичных среди американских револьверов и личного короткоствольного оружия вообще, а также одним из наиболее известных револьверов, когда-либо производившихся фирмой Colt’s Manufacturing Company. Перезарядка осуществляется путём откидывания барабана влево (защёлка находится в задней части рамки). Прицельные приспособления состоят из мушки с пластиковой вставкой яркого цвета и целика, оснащённого сменными пластинами с различными вариантами прорезей. Целик может быть отрегулирован в двух плоскостях при помощи винтов. Револьвер оснащён автоматическим предохранителем, который не позволит курку наколоть ударник, пока спусковой крючок полностью не выжат. Также особенностями данной серии револьверов можно считать «вентилируемую планку» над стволом и удлинённый кожух стержня экстрактора, который идёт под стволом до самого дульного среза. Обычно выполняется с деревянными щечками рукоятки, с отделкой металлических частей в виде воронения или полировки для моделей стандартного ряда, модели «элит» хромированы и имеют щечки из дерева ценных пород.
Кольт «Питон» был личным оружием генерала Паттона.

Colt Mk. III Trooper Lawman (1969)

Револьверы американской фирмы Кольт серии mk. III впервые были выпущены в 1969 году, и представляли собой значительный шаг вперёд по сравнению с более ранними револьверами этой фирмы, практически не менявшими конструкции с начала 1900х годов. Все револьверы семейства mk. III имели ударно-спусковой механизм двойного действия и откидывающийся влево барабан на 6 патронов.

Colt Anaconda (1990)

Револьвер под патрон .44 Magnum или .45 Colt. с ударно-спусковым механизмом двойного действия. Выпускался массово в 1990—1999 годах, на заказ до 2001 года. В основном, используется для охоты и спортивной стрельбы.

Пистолеты
Colt M1900

Первый самозарядный пистолет фирмы Кольт. Как и большинство других пистолетов компании, был создан конструктором Джоном Мозесом Браунингом. Калибр 9 мм (.38 ACP), начало разработки — 1895 год, в производстве с 1900 года, до начала 1903-го, всего изготовлено 4,274 единицы. Проходил испытания в армии США: в 1898 (ещё до начала серийного производства), и в 1900 годах. В обеих конкурсах конкурентами Кольта были немецкий Mauser C-96 и австрийский Steyr-Mannlicher M1894, по сравнению с которыми М1900 показал несколько лучшие результаты.
Использовался во время Филиппино-американской войны.

Colt M1902 (1902)
По итогам испытаний и боевого применения, М1900 был слегка модифицирован: ёмкость магазина увеличилась на один патрон (с 7 до 8), появилась затворная задержка. Получившаяся модель пошла в производство с 1902 года, производство закончено в 1928 году, выпущено около 18,068 единиц. Существовала также спортивная версия — Model 1902 Sporting, у которой ёмкость магазина соответствовала М1900 (7 патронов), а вместо вертикальной насечки в задней части затвора, имелась перекрёстная насечка в передней части. M1902 Sporting производился с 1902 по 1907 год, всего около 6,927 единиц.

Colt M1903 Pocket Hammer (1903)

М1903 появился уже после модели М1902, но базировался на конструкции М1900, отличаясь от него только меньшей длиной. Также как и М1900, он имел магазин на 7 патронов, затворная задержка отсутствовала. Что бы не путать его с другой моделью Кольта, также имевшей индекс М1903, он получил в название приставку «Pocket Hammer» («карманный курковый»). М1903 намного пережил своего «старшего брата» М1900, находясь в производстве до 1927 года.

Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (1903)

Данная модель полностью соответствовала выпускавшемуся в Бельгии Browning M1903, но отличалась от него калибром и меньшими размерами. Использовались патроны 7,65 мм (.32 АСР) и 9 мм (.380 АСР). В производстве с 1903 по 1945 год, около 570,000 экземпляров в пяти слегка отличавшихся вариантах. Для отличия от М1903 калибра .38 АСР, имел приставку «Pocket Hammerless» («карманый бескурковый»).

M1903 Pocket Hammerless был популярен у генералов армии США. В частности им владели Джордж Смит Паттон, Дуайт Дэвид Эйзенхауэр, Джордж Маршалл и Омар Брэдли.

Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket (1908)

Карманный пистолет для самообороны, американский аналог бельгийского Browning M1906. Выпускался с 1908 по 1948 год, всего 420,705 единиц.

Кольт М1911 (1909)

Кольт 1911 года был разработан Джоном Браунингом в 1909 году. Во время первой мировой он показал себя надежным оружием офицерского состава американской армии. Вскоре первоначальная версия была переработана и в 1926 году появился кольт М1911A1. Данная версия оказалась более надежной, и служила в американской армии до операции «Буря в Пустыне».

Colt Double Eagle (1990)

Colt Double Eagle имеет ударно-спусковой механизм двойного действия. Выпускался с 1990 года. Конструкция этого пистолета была целиком выполнена из нержавеющей стали. Пистолет выпускался в двух модификациях: Commander (с укороченным стволом и затвором) и Officers Model (с укороченным стволом и затвором, и уменьшенной рукояткой). По сравнению со своими современниками, Double Eagle был слишком тяжел. Возможно, поэтому он и не пользовался особой популярностью, в результате чего выпуск его был полностью прекращен в 1997 году.

Ссылки
Кольт, Сэмюэл
Капсюльный револьвер Кольт Патерсон (Colt Paterson)
Человек и револьвер — там движущаяся инфографика, разборка кольта

6 лет назад · 865 просмотров

В 1862г. 155 лет назад скончался Сэмюэль КОЛЬТ.