Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 19,
1814. As a youth, he passed the time stripping down
and reassembling his father’s firearms. At the age of 16,
he boarded a ship bound for India, and during the journey,
he carved a wooden prototype of a handgun having
a revolving cylinder with several chambers for bullets,
thereby inventing the revolver.
In 1851, Colt set up business in his native Hartford. In
1856, the Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company
was producing 150 revolvers per day. In mid-1860, when
the United States descended into Civil War, Colt supplied
weapons to both the soldiers of the Confederation and
to those of the Union, but in 1861, Colt stopped selling
guns to the Confederate Army. Samuel Colt died on
January 10, 1862 at the age of 48. His wife Elisabeth took
over and continued to make the Colt Firearms Company
prosper. In 1873, the first revolver with metal cartridges
was invented and it was given the name ‘Peacemaker,’
but it was better known as the SAA (Single Action Army).
In 1891, Colt worked with a certain John Moses
Browning, father of the Colt 1911.