Colt, Samuel (1814-1862), an American inventor and industrialist, became famous for making pistols with revolving cylinders. Colt’s revolvers could quickly fire several shots in a row. Earlier guns needed to be reloaded after each shot. Colt’s guns were widely used in the Mexican War (1846-1848) and the American Civil War (1861-1865). Settlers also made heavy use of Colt’s revolver in the westward expansion of the United States .
Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 19, 1814. He showed an early interest in science and gunpowder. Colt worked on farms and in his father’s bleaching and dying factory before becoming a sailor in 1830. The workings of a ship’s wheel may have inspired Colt’s gun design.
In 1832, Colt asked his father to finance work on guns with revolving cylinders. But Colt soon had to find more money elsewhere. He began to travel and to teach people about the effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas). He made enough money to hire experts to create gun models based on his ideas. Colt patented his “revolving gun” in the United Kingdom and France in 1835 and in the United States in 1836. Later, he had to fight hard to protect his patent rights.
In 1847, the United States Army ordered 1,000 pistols from Colt. He earned enough money from this sale to build a factory , which was among the first to make use of an assembly line method of production. Before the assembly line, guns were made by hand, one at a time, by a gunsmith. In Colt’s factory, the parts were made with the help of machines and assembled by workers at various stations. The factory could thus produce many pistols quickly and cheaply. Colt became famous and wealthy. He died on Jan. 10, 1862. His company continued to make pistols for many years afterward.
