Samuel Colt's single-barreled pistols and rifles, featuring…

Colt's fascination with a horse pistol he acquired at an early age had led him to his eventual life’s profession.

Indentured to a farm in Glastonbury at age eleven, where he did chores and attended school, he had been influenced by the Compendium of Knowledge, an encyclopedia of scientific nature that he had read instead of doing his bible studies.

This encyclopedia contained articles on Robert Fulton and gunpowder, both of which provided motivation and ideas to the young boy.

Reportedly on trips to the store as part of his chores Samuel had overheard the military talk of the success of the double barreled rifle, along with the impossibility of a gun that could shoot five or six times.

When reading Compendium of Knowledge, “he discovered that Robert Fulton and several other inventors had accomplished things deemed impossible-until they were done” and “decided he would be an inventor and create the 'impossible' gun.”

In 1829, the fifteen-year-old Colt had begun working in his father’s textile plant in Ware, Massachusetts, where he had access to tools, materials, and the factory workers' expertise.

Using the ideas and technical knowledge he had acquired earlier from the encyclopedia, Colt had built a home-made galvanic gunpowder battery and exploded it in Ware Lake.

In 1832, his father had sent him to sea to learn the seaman's trade.

While sailing from Boston on the Corlo, Colt served on a missionary trip to Calcutta in an effort to convert the inhabitants to Christianity.

Colt will later say that the concept of the revolver was inspired by his observations of the ship's wheel during this voyage.

He discovered that “regardless of which way the wheel was spun, each spoke always came in direct line with a clutch that could be set to hold it...the revolver was conceived!”

After Colt’s return to the United States in 1832, his father had financed the production of two pistols, but would only hire cheap mechanics because he believed the idea to be folly.

The guns were of poor quality: one burst upon firing, and the other would not fire at all.

During this same period, Samuel again began working at his father's factory.

Having learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from the factory chemist, he soon took\ a portable lab on the road and earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada.

During this time, he also arranged to begin building guns using proper gunsmiths from Baltimore.

In 1832, at the age of eighteen, Colt had applied for a patent on his revolver and declared that he would "be back soon with a model."

In 1835, Colt traveled to England, following in the footsteps of Mr. Elisha Collier (a Bostonian who had patented a revolving flintlock) and secured his first patent (number 6909), despite the reluctance from gun makers and British officials, because no fault could be found with the gun.

He had then traveled to France to promote his invention, and upon his return he had learned of the mediation that England had brokered.

Shortly after his arrival, he had rushed to Washington and on February 25, 1836, he had been granted a patent for a "revolving gun.”

Colt had quickly formed a corporation of New York and New Jersey capitalists in April 1836.

Through the political connections of the subscribers, the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Patterson, New Jersey is chartered by the New Jersey legislature.