Samuel Colt

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Samuel Colt

Samuel Colt (born July 19, 1814 in Hartford , Connecticut ; †  January 10, 1862 there ) was an American inventor and weapons manufacturer. He is considered to be the inventor of the first working firearm with a rotating cylinder , commonly known as the revolver . In fact, he was just a producer and patent holder. Its improved revolver construction is based on the inventions and patents of Elisha Collier ( Collier revolver ), Artemus Wheeler ( percussion revolver ) andCornelius Coolidge returned from Boston .

Life

Colt was the son of Christopher Colt and Sarah Caldwell. Already at the age of 16 he was enthusiastic about the revolutionary idea of ​​a revolver on a trip on a sailing ship from Boston to Calcutta . He carved a six-section model out of wood. His father then financed two prototypes , but neither of them worked properly.

Colt received US patent number 9.430X for its revolver design on February 25, 1836 and manufactured the first prototypes in the same year. The term “Colt” is often used synonymously for “ revolver ”, but this is inaccurate and misleading as the Colt company has been manufacturing large numbers of the well-known Colt M1911 pistol model for 100 years , as well as military assault rifles (such as the M16 ). His Colt Paterson revolvers sold poorly in the eastern United States, where they were manufactured, but found many buyers in the Republic of Texas . With the start of the war with Mexico in 1845, the Texas Rangers were able to convince the US government to secure a larger shipment of Colt revolvers for the first time. This lifted Samuel Colt's factory, the Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, out of bankruptcy.

Another Colt invention was an underwater electric detonator . While trying to market it, Samuel Colt met Samuel Morse . The two became friends and sought funding from the government. Colt's waterproof cable was in demand when Morse began laying telegraph lines under lakes, rivers, and bays, and especially when crossing the Atlantic Ocean .

After the requested funds were approved by Congress towards the end of 1841, against the background of increasing tensions with Great Britain, Samuel Colt began to show his developments of the underwater mines. In 1842 he managed to destroy a moving ship, to the satisfaction of the United States Navy and President James K. Polk . However, strong opposition from John Quincy Adams , who personally disliked Colt, held the project up. Colt then focused on making his underwater cable. Colt were paid $ 50 a mile.

Samuel Colt was also one of the first to consistently use machine tools in production and to introduce industrial mass production (long before Henry Ford ), as he was already using the "system of interchangeable parts " in his weapons production around 1850 .

This system was invented around 1750 by the French armorer Honoré Blanc . But since it met strong resistance among the French armories, who saw their guild in danger, it could not prevail in France at that time. Allegedly, Thomas Jefferson , who was in France at the time, recognized the ingenuity of this production method and brought the idea to America, where he supported the spread of replacement construction. Around 1800, for example, he commissioned the American inventor Eli Whitney to manufacture 15,000 rifles with the replacement system within three years. It took Eli Whitney a total of eight years to refine this system and develop the appropriate production machines to deliver the 15,000 rifles. When the 15,000 rifles were delivered and the replacement system was in place, it only took him one more year to manufacture another 10,000 rifles. The system of interchangeable construction and mass production was further developed by other Americans such as Samuel Colt and Henry Ford.

Samuel Colt died in his hometown of Hartford at the age of 47.

literature

Web links

Commons : Samuel Colt  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sea voyage from Boston to Calcutta
  2. ^ A b Gregg Lee Carter: Guns in American Society. An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law. P. 126 ( Google Books )
  3. ↑ Patent US9430X Improvement in Fire-Arms , published February 25, 1836
  4. ↑ As early as December 8, 1835 (at the age of 21), he had his idea patented in Great Britain and France.
  5. ^ Eighty years' progress of the United States, from the Revolutionary war to the great rebellion. New National Publishing House, New York 1864 ( Google Books )
  6. ↑ Because of the peaceful times, the US Army had no need for a new weapon and found it to be too complicated and too expensive.
  7. ^ Daniel Boorstin: The Americans. The Democratic Experience. Random House, New York 1974, p. 35.
personal data
SURNAME Colt, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American inventor and weapons manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Hartford , Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1862
Place of death Hartford , Connecticut