Samuel Colt

Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt with a 1851 Navy Revolver
Born	(1814-07-19)July 19, 1814 Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Died	January 10, 1862(1862-01-10) (aged 47) Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Occupation	Inventor, industrialist, businessman, hunter
Net worth	US$15 million at the time of his death (approximately 1/1000 of US GNP)
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Hart Jarvis
Children	Caldwell Hart Colt
Relatives	John C. Colt
Awards	Telford Medal
Signature

Samuel Colt (July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor and industrialist from Hartford, Connecticut. He founded Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (today Colt's Manufacturing Company), and made the mass production of the revolver commercially viable.

Colt's first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. But his business expanded rapidly after 1847, when the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 revolvers during the American war with Mexico. During the American Civil War, his factory in Hartford supplied firearms both to the North and the South. Later, his firearms were prominent during the settling of the western frontier. Colt died in 1862 as one of the wealthiest men in America.

Colt's manufacturing methods were at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution. His use of interchangeable parts helped him become one of the first to use the assembly line efficiently. Moreover, his innovative use of art, celebrity endorsements, and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer in the fields of advertising, product placement, and mass marketing.

Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Christopher Colt (1777–1850), a farmer who had moved his family to the city after he became a businessman, and Sarah Colt, born Caldwell. His mother's father, Major John Caldwell, had been an officer in the Continental Army; one of Samuel's earliest possessions was his maternal grandfather's flintlock pistol. Sarah died from tuberculosis when Samuel was six years old, and his father remarried two years later, to Olivia Sargeant. Samuel had three sisters, one of whom died during her childhood. His oldest sister, Margaret, died of tuberculosis at 19 and the other, Sarah Ann, later committed suicide. One brother, James, became a lawyer; another, Christopher, was a textile merchant. A third brother, John C. Colt, a man of many occupations, killed a creditor in 1841 in New York City, was convicted of the murder, and committed suicide on the day he was to be executed.