Samuel Colt

Lore & Background

Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of a farmer who became a businessman. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was six. At age 11, he was indentured to a farmer in Glastonbury, where he read a scientific encyclopedia that motivated him to create an 'impossible gun' that could fire multiple times without reloading. In 1829, at age 15, he began working in his father's textile plant and built a homemade galvanic cell for an underwater explosion demonstration. Sent to boarding school, he amused classmates with pyrotechnics until a July 4 accident ended his schooling. His father then sent him to learn the seaman's trade; on a voyage to Calcutta, Colt had the idea for a revolver inspired by capstans and windlasses, making a wooden model of a pepperbox revolver that allowed the shooter to rotate the cylinder by cocking the hammer.

After returning to the United States in 1832, Colt resumed working for his father, who financed two guns. The first pistol exploded, but the rifle performed well; his father would not finance further development. Colt then earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada, calling himself 'the Celebrated Dr. Colt of New-York, London and Calcutta.' He later partnered with sculptor Hiram Powers for demonstrations based on The Divine Comedy. Having saved money, he hired gunsmith John Pearson to build his revolver. In August 1835, Colt left for England and France to secure foreign patents, and was granted his first patent in the United Kingdom. Upon returning to America, he was granted a U.S. patent for a 'revolving gun' on February 25, 1836, protecting the basic principles of his revolving-breech loading, folding trigger firearm named the Colt Paterson. With a loan from his cousin Dudley Selden, he formed a corporation of venture capitalists, and the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, was chartered on March 5, 1836.

Reader's Guide

Samuel Colt's significance lies in his transformation of firearm manufacturing and marketing. 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 to both the North and the South. Later, his firearms were used widely during the settling of the western frontier. When Colt died in 1862, he was one of the wealthiest men in the United States. 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 make efficient use of the assembly line manufacturing process. He envisioned all parts of every Colt gun to be interchangeable and made by machine, to be assembled later by hand. Moreover, his innovative use of art, celebrity endorsements, and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer in advertising, product placement, and mass marketing. Colt never claimed to have invented the revolver; his design was a more practical adaptation of Elisha Collier's earlier revolving flintlock, incorporating a locking bolt to keep the cylinder aligned with the barrel. His great contribution was the use of interchangeable parts.

Did You Know?

• Colt's first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey, and making underwater mines.
• Colt's mother died from tuberculosis when he was six years old.
• On a voyage to Calcutta, Colt made a wooden model of a pepperbox revolver out of scrap wood.

Engineering a Safer Six-Shooter

The Colt Dragoon emerged as a direct response to the field failures of its predecessor, the Walker. Soldiers in the Mexican-American War had endured a weapon that weighed a punishing four and a half pounds, making it practical only when slung from a saddle. Worse, the Walker's chambers could be overloaded with as much as sixty grains of powder, and when Pickett bullets were mistakenly seated backwards, cylinders occasionally detonated in the shooter's hand. A further frustration was the loading lever, which would spring free during recoil and lock the action mid-combat. Colt's remedy was methodical. The Dragoon's shorter cylinder physically limited the powder charge to fifty grains, eliminating the overloading hazard. The barrel was trimmed to seven and a half inches from the Walker's nine, shaving overall weight down to four pounds and two ounces. A latch was added in front of the loading lever to hold it firmly in place through the kick of discharge. Together, these changes produced a revolver that was lighter, safer, and far more reliable in the hands of the Mounted Rifles and Dragoon regiments who would carry it into the next decade of conflict.

A Decade of Iterative Production

Between 1847 and 1860, Colt rolled out roughly nineteen thousand eight hundred Dragoon revolvers, a total that included the original eleven hundred Walkers, plus an additional seven hundred and fifty units set aside for the British market. The production line passed through several distinct stages. Around two hundred and forty transitional pieces were turned out at the Eli Whitney factory in late 1847 and 1848, featuring a seven-and-a-half-inch barrel, a cylinder with oval bolt cutouts, and notably slender grips that collectors call "Slim Jim." Approximately seven thousand First Models followed in 1848 through 1850, distinguished by rectangular cylinder stops, a V-shaped mainspring, and a square-backed trigger guard. The Second Model, numbering about two thousand five hundred and fifty, swapped in a flat leaf mainspring and added a wheel on the hammer after serial ten thousand. The Third Model, a run of ten thousand spanning 1851 to 1860, introduced a round trigger guard and optional features such as detachable shoulder stocks, horizontal loading lever latches, and folding leaf sights. A smaller pocket variant, the Baby Dragoon, found a ready audience in California's Gold Rush camps.

From Saddle Holster to Civilian Icon

The Dragoon was conceived for the U.S. Army's Regiment of Mounted Rifles and was also distributed to the Dragoon regiments, where soldiers carried it in pommel holsters strapped to their saddles. Though it entered service after the Mexican-American War had already concluded, the revolver found a second life among civilians in the 1850s and 1860s. Veterans who had served in the Southwest developed a strong attachment to the weapon, and it earned a reputation as one of the most powerful sidearms of its era. The smaller Baby Dragoon variant was marketed with particular success in California during the Gold Rush, giving prospectors and settlers a compact yet potent companion. When the American Civil War erupted, Dragoons saw widespread use, cementing their place in the conflict's material record. The revolver's combination of manageable weight, reliable action, and respectable stopping power made it a natural choice for men who needed a dependable firearm far from the nearest armory.

Famous Hands and Lasting Mythos

The Dragoon's reputation was shaped as much by the people who carried it as by its engineering. California bandit Joaquin Murietta, teamster and stagecoach driver Charley Parkhurst, Town Marshal James Douglas Byrd of Watsonville, and outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez all reportedly used the revolver. On the other side of the law, Union General George B. McClellan carried one. Harper's Weekly reported that James Butler, better known as Wild Bill Hickok, arrived in Springfield, Missouri with a Dragoon, though most historians credit his famous street duel with Davis Tutt to a Colt 1851 Navy instead. In fiction, the weapon appears as Augustus McCrae's sidearm in Lonesome Dove, as Clint Eastwood's arm in The Outlaw Josey Wales, and as Mattie Ross's revolver in True Grit, both in Charles Portis's novel and the 2010 film. Today, surviving examples are prized collectibles that command high prices, and non-firing replicas keep the Dragoon's silhouette in public view.

Gallery