Samuel Colt Biography

Samuel Colt created the 19th-century handgun, and the successful gun company, which bore his name.

Colt was 16 years old and sailing on a ship to India when he carved a model of a single-barrelled pistol with automatically revolving chambers. The design was ‘revolutionary’ in more ways than one: it turned handguns from single-shot devices into multi-shot machines that were far more useful and deadly in combat.

By the time he was 22, Colt had patented a working revolver in France, England and the United States.

He began manufacturing them in an assembly-line factory in New Jersey in 1836. The company failed at first, but war with Mexico and expansion into the west required more guns, and Colt built up a new factory in Connecticut.

By the beginning of the Civil War, the Colt revolver was one of the standard small arms of the world. Colt died a rich man, and the company is still around today.