"God didn't make all men equal, Sam Colt did".
The man who inspired this common saying among the nineteenth century was the brain behind one of the world's most famous handgun's. He was born Samuel Colt in Hartford, Connecticut in 1814, the son of Christopher and Sarah Colt. He married Elizabeth Jarvis in 1856 and together the couple had four children. Colt's father's textile business failed when he was a young boy. At the age of seven, Samuel was intrigued by guns. While the other young boys were outside playing or fighting, Sam could be found taking apart his father's handguns and rifles and then very careful putting them back together. He attended Amherst Academy, where he designed a fireworks display for Fourth of July celebrations. The project misfired both literally and figuratively; the school building burned to the ground. According to legend, when he was a teenager, Sam got a job as a ship hand on a boat headed for India. While at sea, he carved a wooden model of a handgun with a revolving chamber. It is said that he was inspired by the wheel of the ship that he was traveling on. He noticed that when the wheel was turned, a clutch aligned the spokes and linked the wheel in place. .
Returning home, Colt took a job in a textile factory, and then at the age of eighteen found working as a traveling salesman, touring New England selling nitrous oxide (laughing gas). He proved himself in adept salesman; he called himself Dr. Colt, and quickly mastered the techniques of promotion. He used his earnings from this job to build his prototypes of his revolver, and in 1835-6 took out US, British, and French patents. In 1836, having found financial banking backing, he established his first factory in Paterson, New Jersey. Although Colt's revolvers proved effective, the US Army showed no interest and there was at this point little civilian demand; the company failed in 1842.
