Paterson Passaic New Jersey United States

Samuel Colt's single-barreled pistols and rifles, featuring a cartridge cylinder that is rotated by cocking the hammer, will be slow to gain acceptance (and the company will fail in 1842).

Made possible by converging percussion technology, this first practical revolving barrel multishot firearm is to be the genesis of what will later germinate into an industrial and cultural legacy and a priceless contribution to the development of war technology; this is ironically personified in the naming of one of his later revolving innovations, the Peacemaker

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.

Colt is given a commission for each gun sold in exchange for his share of patent rights, and stipulates the return of the rights if the company disbands.

Samuel Colt's U.S. revolver patent gives him a monopoly on revolver manufacture until 1857.

Colt will never claim to have invented the revolver; his design is a more practical adaption of Collier's earlier revolving flintlock incorporating a locking bolt to keep the cylinder in line with the barrel.

The invention of the percussion cap makes ignition more reliable, faster, and safer than the older flintlock design.

Colt's great contribution is to the use of interchangeable parts.

Knowing that some gun parts are made by machine, he envisions that all the parts on every Colt gun to be interchangeable and made by machine, later to be assembled by hand.

His goal is the assembly line.

Although by the end of 1837 the Arms Company will have made over one thousand weapons, there have been no sales.

Following the Panic of 1837, the company's underwriters had been reluctant to fund the new machinery that Colt needs to make interchangeable parts, so he had gone 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.

Presidential approval in hand, Colt had pushed a bill through 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 fifty to seventy-five pistols was canceled when the company did not produce them quickly enough.

Constant problems for Colt were the provisions of the Militia Act of 1808, which states that any arms purchased by a State militia have to be in current service in the United States Military.

This Act prevents state militias from allocating funds towards the purchase of experimental weapons or foreign weapons.

Colt undermines his own company by his reckless spending.

Selden constantly chastises him for using corporate funds to buy an expensive wardrobe or making lavish gifts to potential clients.

Selden twice cuts off Colt from company money for spending it on liquor and fancy dinners; Colt thinks getting potential customers inebriated will generate more sales.

Samuel Colt's Patent Arms Manufacturing Company had been 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 had praised the new weapon, but the unusual hammerless design, sixty years ahead of its time, had led to difficulty in training men who were used to exposed-hammer guns.

Consequently, many curious soldiers had taken the locks apart.

This resulted in breakage of parts, stripped screw heads and inoperable guns.

Colt had soon reworked his design to leave the firing hammer exposed, but problems continued.

In late 1843, after the loss of payment for the Florida pistols, the Paterson plant closes and a public auction is held in New York City to sell the company's most liquid assets.

Samuel Colt had not refrained long from manufacturing, and turned to selling underwater electrical detonators and waterproof cable of his own invention.

Soon after the failure of the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, he teamd up with Samuel Morse to lobby the U.S. government for funds.

Colt's waterproof cable, made from tar-coated copper, will prove valuable when Morse runs telegraph lines under lakes, rivers, bays, and in his attempts to lay a telegraph line under the Atlantic Ocean.

Morse will use the battery from one of Colt's mines to transmit a telegraph message from Manhattan to Governors Island when his own battery is too weak to send the signal.

When tensions with Great Britain prompted Congress to appropriate funds for Colt's project toward the end of 1841, he demonstrated his underwater mines to the US government.

In 1842 he had 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 U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 8th congressional district, scuttled the project as "not fair and honest warfare" and called the Colt mine an "unchristian contraption".

After this setback, Colt had turned his attention to perfecting tinfoil cartridges he had originally designed for use in his revolvers.

The standard at this time was to have powder and ball contained in a paper or skin envelope or "cartridge" for ease of loading.

However, if the paper gets wet it will ruin the powder

Colt had tried alternate materials such as rubber cement, but settled on a thin type of tinfoil.

In 1841 he made samples of these cartridges for the army.

During tests of the foil cartridges, twenty-five rounds were fired 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 lukewarm and the army purchased a few thousand rounds for further testing.

In 1843 the army had returned to Colt with an order for two hundred thousand of the tinfoil cartridges packed ten to a box for use in muskets.

With the money made from the cartridges Colt turns back to Morse and his cable for ideas other than detonating mines.

Colt concentrates on manufacturing his waterproof telegraph cable, believing the business will prosper alongside Morse's invention.

He begins promoting the telegraph companies so he can create a wider market for his cable, for which he is to be paid fifty dollars per mile.

Colt tries to use this revenue to resurrect the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, but cannot secure funds from other investors or even his own family.

This leaves 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 has a stationary trigger and is in a larger caliber.

Colt submits his single prototype to the War Department as a "Holster revolver".