Background
At the age of 16 while shipping as a hand on the brig Corlo bound for India, he noticed that when the wheel was turned, a clutch aligned the spokes and locked the wheel in position. Applying this principle to firearms, Colt invented the first practical revolving-cylinder gun with automatic revolution and locking of cylinder, both accomplished by cocking the hammer. This principle was embodied in his basic patent issued Feb. 25, 1836. To raise money for pilot models, the aristocratic-looking inventor toured the country as "Doctor Coult," giving exhibitions with nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
In 1835, he went to Europe, where he secured English and French patents. The following year Colt assigned his patent to the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, which had been formed at Paterson, N.J. Conflict of personalities, however, caused the company to fail in 1842. Searching for means to continue the manufacture of his arms, he experimented with submarine explosives and perfected the first electric submarine cable.
Colt's Paterson pistols were used effectively by the Texas Rangers during the state's fight for independence from Mexico; this led to a government contract dated Jan. 4, 1847, for 1,000 pistols. Having no plant, Colt contracted with Eli Whitney (son of the inventor) of Whitneyville, Conn., for their manufacture. He opened a small plant in Hartford following the completion of this contract and introduced new models. The first naval order was for the new navy pistol to supply Commodore Perry's squadron bound for Japan in 1852.
Now on the road to financial independence, in this same year he purchased land considered worthless by reason of spring flooding, in the South Meadows at Hartford, and after building dykes to control this condition, in 1855 built an immense armory, which still houses the Colt Company.
Colt was sympathetic to the South in its efforts to arm prior to the Civil War. After the war started, however, he devoted his entire plant and his energy and skill to the production for Union forces of pistols and a new rifle musket, some parts of which he had had made in England. During the war, the Colt Company furnished hundreds of thousands of weapons to the government.
Colt was an aide on the staff of Gov. Horatio Seymour of New York, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. On May 16, 1861, he was commissioned colonel of the First Regiment Colt Revolving Rifles by Gov. William A. Buckingham of Connecticut. This commission was revoked, however, on June 20, 1861, because of differences between Colt and the Governor, and the regiment was disbanded, to be reorganized as the Fifth Regiment.
Colt's manufacturing methods and ideas of employee welfare were both advanced for the period. He built model homes and a recreation center for his workmen, and turned out arms by machinery on the interchangeable parts system. He died at his home, Armsmear, in Hartford, on Jan. 10, 1862.