May 5, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Phil Anschutz writes in Out Where the West Begins: “Samuel Colt’s life was the American story written in capital letters.” Here to tell that story is Ashley Hlebinsky—former co-host of Discovery Channel’s Master of Arms, former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum, and president of The Gun Code, LLC.
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
And we continue with our American stories. Samuel Coult became
America's first industrial tycoon, and his faithful wife Elizabeth, proved
herself to be no less extraordinary, making Sam Coult's legend
bigger than ever and his empire her own. Bill Answertz
writes in his book Out Where the West Begins, Samuel
(00:40):
Colt's life was the American story written in capital letters.
Here to tell the story is Ashley Levinsky, the former
co host of Discovery Channel's Master of Arms, the former
curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum, and President
of the Gun Code LLLC.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Ear'ssh There's a famous quote that, well, there's lots of
variations on this quote, but basically that God made man
and Sam Colt made them equal. Not one hundred percent
sure if that quote actually happened, but it certainly exemplifies
the legend that is Samuel Colt. But the story behind
(01:25):
Sam Colt is that he was the first person to
make a commercially successful revolver.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
And you're not familiar with a revolver, it kind.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Of describes itself when you think about the technology, so
you have a pistol or a rifle. He actually made
some shotguns, and you've got this cylinder that would rotate,
it would revolve, and you had ultimately five or six rounds.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
His guns varied early on, and you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Would load each round into the gun and then you
would cock the hammer and allowing the cylinder to rotate
in order to fire the next round, which is a
pretty revolutionary concept in firearms design because prior to really
the industrial period in the United States and overseas, guns
(02:13):
were individually made or produced in an armory, and so
those guns were typically single shot. It's important to note
that repeaters have been around since the at least the
fourteen hundreds, but they were popular more on the civilian
market than they were in the military. They didn't really
have a military purpose, and part of that's because the
government's a little slow to adopt new things. But it
(02:36):
really becomes both a civilian and military firearm around the
time of Sam Colt. Now, he wasn't the first person
to make a revolver, and that's important to note, and
he was one of the first people where you didn't
have to advance the cylinder yourself. But there were revolving
mechanisms as far back as the fifteen hundreds, and so
(02:56):
he did get inspiration from those things, although he might
deny that he got inspiration from those things, but it'd
be kind of hard to believe that he had never
seen this firearm that was, you know, produced and people
didn't know about it, but he did create one that
is now so famous and so synonymous with his name,
it's easy to just associate him with the first. He
(03:19):
starts off his life though, being a little mischievous, and
so he has to get really serious really quickly because
his father's kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Fed up with his lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And he starts at the Amherst Academy in Massachusetts for school,
but he's expelled from the school, and so he was
sent out to see on the Corvo and he did
that for many years, around eighteen thirty, and on that ship,
as Colt would recount, he would become fascinated with the
(03:49):
ship's wheel and the way that the wheel rotated. And
there's also a story that he like kind of whittled
a wooden god, and so he really started to try
to yate what would become one of the most iconic
firearms in American history and international history. Initially, though, he
has to go over to England to get his revolver noticed,
(04:12):
and the first patent that he takes out is in
eighteen thirty five. But in the United States he does
take out a patent, two patents actually in eighteen thirty six,
one in February and one in April. There was a
patent process in the United States that dates the seventeen nineties,
but it was kind of a hot mess, and so
there wasn't really this kind of full movement to patent
your invention until this time period. There was a standardization
(04:37):
that was the Patent Act of eighteen thirty six, and
so after eighteen thirty six you see all kinds of
patents and people suing each other and trying to make things.
And Colt really gets in on the ground floor in
the United States with his at the time five shot revolver.
And while we associate him with a handgun, that initial
patent was actually for a rifle as well, and so
(04:59):
he would make both. He loved his rifle like nobody
else did. But he loved his rifle, and so he
would make several different designs off of that revolving mechanism.
And so he starts to make what is ultimately called
the Patterson revolver is the one that's associated with his
first real product, and that's because of his factory that
he put into place in Patterson, New Jersey, and that
(05:22):
was ultimately funded mostly by his family, and it's ultimately
a business failure for him. He really struggled in business.
I mean, his company went bankrupt a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
But the one thing that he was was a salesman.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And there are stories and basically hawking his own firearms
on the battlefield to try to get people to purchase
his firearms. So what he maybe lacked in complete business
management prowess, he made up for in making people excited
for his product. One of the more iconic revolvers that
(05:54):
came after the Patterson and all the different variations of
the Patterson was the Walker Revolver and it was ultimately
designed in concert with a Texas ranger named Samuel Walker,
and it was used by them on the battlefield in Texas.
And it was a big gun, heavy caliber, kind of
(06:14):
had some issues. You see the incorporation of what's called
a loading lever, so it actually swings down and helps
to load the gun to pack it in.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Unfortunately, if you fired one.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Like I have, the loading lever didn't have any type
of catch, so it would often fall down and get
stuck in the cylinder and you'd have to push it
back up and then fire it again. But still revolutionary
for its time. But it was one of those things
that I mean, I can't even imagine being on the
battlefield and not being familiar with a revolver and expecting
a single shot gun and then coming at the barrel
(06:48):
of a repeating firearm that doesn't have to be reloaded
every time.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
So it's one of.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Those things that is progressive and also incites a lot
of fear into people who are on the receiving end
of it.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
And the really interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Thing about this patent that is a smart move for
Colt is that he owned the legal right to make
this type of technology, so he basically, even though he
couldn't really get his stuff together always in his business side,
he had the market. Other people could not make that
gun in that configuration, and he actually was able to
(07:21):
get the patent extended, so it didn't expire until the
eighteen fifties, so you have the market for twenty years.
But there were people waiting in the wings, and Colt
did make some missteps and one of those missteps. Was
that he had a guy named Roland White who worked
for him, who developed this kind of ingenious piece of
technology where instead of having to awkwardly load the revolver
(07:44):
from the front of the cylinder, he actually made it
so it was called a board through cylinder, so you
actually could load it from the back of the gun,
which was really impressive for that time increase the speed
of everything. And he brought it to Colt and he
was like, look at this thing that I've got, and
Colt was like, no, we're good, thank you. And Roland
White would I always say it goes across the street
(08:05):
to Smith and Wesson, but that's.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Not really accurate.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
But he basically goes to Smith and Wesson, who would become,
you know, one of the other iconic names associated with
the revolver early.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
On in history.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And he has his own very complicated history of Smith
and Wesson. He takes its design. It's what Smith and
Wesson is known for. Unfortunately, he didn't make a great
deal with them as a war broke out where he
had to basically legally defend his patent. But when the
war breaks out and everyone has to make as many
farms as possible. There's a lot of patent infringement, and
(08:39):
he very much gets hit hard with that. Since Smith
and Wesson was smart enough to make the deal, but
we don't have to talk about Roland White. Colt messed
up and Smith and wasn't was smart. So as soon
as Colt's Patton expired, and I think believe eighteen fifty seven,
Smith and Wesson, you know, popped up quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And you've been listening to Ashley Lebinski tell the story
of Samuel Cult and it's a story about so much
from manufacturing two sales itself and salesmanship. When we come
back more of the story of Samuel Colt here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(09:44):
and the story of Samuel Colt. When we last left off,
it was with Roland White leaving Cult after his new
design was rejected. White took his board through idea over
to Cult's competitor, Smith and Wesson. Let's return to this
story of sam Coult with our storyteller, Ashley Thebinski.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So now you've got some competition in the market for Colt.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
You've got Colt, You've got Smith.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And Wesson, you've got Remington all names that are still
pretty well known today for firearms, and in some way
some configuration are still around, and so everyone kind of
gets into the kind of mass production of firearms for
the American Civil War, which starts in eighteen sixty one,
so that's, you know, five years after, you start getting
(10:31):
more revolvers on the market, and handguns become a lot
more efficient on the battlefield. Prior to that, you know,
officers carried them, but in the Civil War you had
officers carrying handguns. But then you also had soldiers purchasing firearms,
including Colts. Prices were relatively reasonable, I guess for the time,
so you would have soldiers individuals that would buy the
(10:53):
gun if they were not issued anything. And so it
becomes kind of a change in the way that we
perceive technology on the battlefield, which is interesting because there's
a lot of repeating technology in rifle form that is
available during the Civil War, but it's not adopted as
readily and as passionately as people adopted the revolver. Samuel
(11:16):
Colt was not always known for being easy to get
along with, and while he was a great salesman and
a great inventor, he had some missteps towards the end
of his life, and one of the biggest issues in
one of the controversies that surrounded his life was not
(11:37):
leading up to the American Civil War, he had clients
down in the South that he continued to sell to
as tensions were brewing between the Union and the Confederacy,
and he did claim that the second the war broke
out or they knew what was happening that he was,
there were going to be no guns going down there.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
But the damage was already done.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Whatever his logic and reason were for continuing to supply
firearms to the South leading up to the war, it
really did so much damage to his personal reputation.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
And while he did.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Ultimately get a you know, a regiment or unit during
the Civil War, and hopefully he was hoping that would.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Help everything, they did go on.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Colonel sam Cooletzon he got that title before he died
in eighteen sixty two of rheumatism. So the fascinating part
of this story is that a lot of the guns
that we associate quote unquote with cult, you know, the
cult single Action the Western Colts, had nothing to do with.
And a lot of people, you know, still associate his
(12:40):
name with designs that happened a decade after he died,
and it's kind of all held together by his widow,
who is, in my opinion, responsible for the cult legacy
continuing on. She her name was Elizabeth Jarvis Colts. She
was born to a socialite family in Hartford, Connecticut, where
(13:01):
the factory would end up, and she very quickly overnight
becomes the major shareholder of Colt's patent firearms manufacturing company.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
And one of the things that.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Also is really she's really passionate about is her father's
an episcopal minister, so she will stay very close to
the church and charity for the rest of her life.
She was one of the richest women in America at
the time. She inherited millions of dollars and the controlling
interest in Colt. Her brother actually ran the company for
(13:33):
a little bit after another designer who had taken over
the company, Alicia k. Root, died and she had a
tragic story as well. So she lost her husband, but
she also lost initially two children in infancy. She was
pregnant when Colt died, and I believe she lost one
other child, so her only surviving child was someone named
(13:56):
Coldwell Colt and so she was kind of marred by
all of that tragedy, but she was so well liked
by the community that she was known as the first
Lady of Hartford, and that was because of her creation
of gardens, her love of the workers in the Cult Factory,
and her kind of hutzba for the fact that Confederate
(14:20):
sympathizers burned down the factory in eighteen sixty four, and
she rebuilt and she recreated this onion dome that was
iconic and associated with the factory.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And she always took care of the workers that they had.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
The Cult manufacturing facility actually housed a lot of their workers.
They had sports teams for them, they had music performances,
they had educational opportunities for the families that worked for
the Cult factory, and she continued to really cultivate that environment.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And one of the things that she did, which was
probably more.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Or less successful, was she created a church on site
of kind of the entire Coltsville as it's called, and
one of her hopes was that executives and workers alike
could go and worship. And it's fascinating architecture. You can
go look at it today. It incorporates so many facets
of technology, you know, revolving cylinders built into the architecture tools.
(15:19):
I mean everywhere there's something related to firearms. And of
course she had to mortalize her husband in many, many
different ways. She had statues erected where he's you know,
whittling the wood model of his colt. And she also
included a beautiful stained glass pane in the church where
(15:43):
she casually incorporated Sam cult into a biblical legend. So
she wanted to not only run a successful company and
take care of people in Hartford, she also immortalized his lifetime.
And to some extent, you hear stories about Sam Coult
and they're not in a very favorable light. He was
difficult to get along with, and he he struggled sometimes
(16:06):
as a businessman, and so when you hear cold today,
you don't always hear that story. And I think Elizabeth
played a very big role in kind of rebranding him
after his passing and creating all of these things where
his statue surrounded by community prosperity.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And it changed a little bit of the way that
the company was perceived. Now.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
She died in nineteen oh five, so she outlived her
husband significantly. But Cold really was getting started at that point,
and so her legacy kind of still stands with all
of the gardens. She actually took her property Arms Mirror
the house that she and Cold had you lived in
built together, and she turned it into a home for
(16:53):
the widows of Episcopal minister.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
So she kind of comes.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Full circle with all of that taking care of people
in the community. But there are also some iconic developments
that happened that put Colt on the map in terms
of design and functionality and the future of the company.
And this is done by several designers that work for
the factory whose names are lesser known, and that would
(17:18):
be the designers of the Colt Model eighteen seventy three
single action army, which has been seen in pretty much
every Western film ever made.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And then also they were on.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
The forefront of automatic technology. Automatic technology, very loosely, is
that you have a gun where you press the trigger
and it continuously fires until you either release the trigger,
you run out of ammunition, which happened most of the time.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Or the fire malfunction.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And they worked with a very well known designer named
John Moses Browning early on to create what's called the
Colt Model eighteen ninety five, so believe that you have
machine guns in eighteen ninety five that are being used
at the Battle of San Juan Hill.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
In eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
And then you also work with Browning to create a
semi automatic pistol. Semi automatic technology means every time you
press the trigger fires one round, but it automatically re
chambers and rounds you can fire another one. And the
gun that's most associated with that, although there were various
versions before, this is the Cold Model nineteen eleven, which
is still very very popular today. So you've got a
(18:21):
man with an idea, you've got a troublemaker with an idea.
You've got a personality with an idea, and he takes
that and he, while not always successful, surrounds himself with
people that do also know what they're doing. And I
guess to some extent, he surrounds himself with the right
woman because she was able to, you know, really be
the face of the company and run the company with
(18:42):
her brother for a little bit and basically build up
this entire reputation for her husband.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It's kind of sad that.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
We don't always hear her name, because you've got a
woman you know that's now inheriting a major manufacturing facility
after her husband's death and rebuilds when she needs to build,
and does saw much for a community, and because of
her generosity, because of her charity, I think we remember
sam Colt in a different light, and she's ultimately responsible
(19:13):
for how we perceive you all of that today for good,
bad and indifferent, I guess.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And a terrific job on the production by Greg Hengler
and a special thanks to Ashley Lebinski, the former co
host of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms, the former
curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum and president
of the Gun Code. And she was so right. He
was a troublemaker and a person with an idea, he
(19:42):
said of Samuel Colt. And he surrounded himself with the
right people and in the end the right woman. And
after his premature death in eighteen sixty two, is bride
Elizabeth would live another few decades and set the company
right and set up Colt for even greater success and recognition.
(20:03):
The story of Samuel Colt and the birth of the
Revolver here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Samuel Coult became
America's first industrial tycoon, and his faithful wife Elizabeth, proved
herself to be no less extraordinary, making Sam Coult's legend
bigger than ever and his empire her own. Bill Answertz
writes in his book Out Where the West Begins, Samuel
(00:40):
Colt's life was the American story written in capital letters.
Here to tell the story is Ashley Levinsky, the former
co host of Discovery Channel's Master of Arms, the former
curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum, and President
of the Gun Code LLLC.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Ear'ssh There's a famous quote that, well, there's lots of
variations on this quote, but basically that God made man
and Sam Colt made them equal. Not one hundred percent
sure if that quote actually happened, but it certainly exemplifies
the legend that is Samuel Colt. But the story behind
(01:25):
Sam Colt is that he was the first person to
make a commercially successful revolver.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
And you're not familiar with a revolver, it kind.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Of describes itself when you think about the technology, so
you have a pistol or a rifle. He actually made
some shotguns, and you've got this cylinder that would rotate,
it would revolve, and you had ultimately five or six rounds.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
His guns varied early on, and you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Would load each round into the gun and then you
would cock the hammer and allowing the cylinder to rotate
in order to fire the next round, which is a
pretty revolutionary concept in firearms design because prior to really
the industrial period in the United States and overseas, guns
(02:13):
were individually made or produced in an armory, and so
those guns were typically single shot. It's important to note
that repeaters have been around since the at least the
fourteen hundreds, but they were popular more on the civilian
market than they were in the military. They didn't really
have a military purpose, and part of that's because the
government's a little slow to adopt new things. But it
(02:36):
really becomes both a civilian and military firearm around the
time of Sam Colt. Now, he wasn't the first person
to make a revolver, and that's important to note, and
he was one of the first people where you didn't
have to advance the cylinder yourself. But there were revolving
mechanisms as far back as the fifteen hundreds, and so
(02:56):
he did get inspiration from those things, although he might
deny that he got inspiration from those things, but it'd
be kind of hard to believe that he had never
seen this firearm that was, you know, produced and people
didn't know about it, but he did create one that
is now so famous and so synonymous with his name,
it's easy to just associate him with the first. He
(03:19):
starts off his life though, being a little mischievous, and
so he has to get really serious really quickly because
his father's kind of.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Fed up with his lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
And he starts at the Amherst Academy in Massachusetts for school,
but he's expelled from the school, and so he was
sent out to see on the Corvo and he did
that for many years, around eighteen thirty, and on that ship,
as Colt would recount, he would become fascinated with the
(03:49):
ship's wheel and the way that the wheel rotated. And
there's also a story that he like kind of whittled
a wooden god, and so he really started to try
to yate what would become one of the most iconic
firearms in American history and international history. Initially, though, he
has to go over to England to get his revolver noticed,
(04:12):
and the first patent that he takes out is in
eighteen thirty five. But in the United States he does
take out a patent, two patents actually in eighteen thirty six,
one in February and one in April. There was a
patent process in the United States that dates the seventeen nineties,
but it was kind of a hot mess, and so
there wasn't really this kind of full movement to patent
your invention until this time period. There was a standardization
(04:37):
that was the Patent Act of eighteen thirty six, and
so after eighteen thirty six you see all kinds of
patents and people suing each other and trying to make things.
And Colt really gets in on the ground floor in
the United States with his at the time five shot revolver.
And while we associate him with a handgun, that initial
patent was actually for a rifle as well, and so
(04:59):
he would make both. He loved his rifle like nobody
else did. But he loved his rifle, and so he
would make several different designs off of that revolving mechanism.
And so he starts to make what is ultimately called
the Patterson revolver is the one that's associated with his
first real product, and that's because of his factory that
he put into place in Patterson, New Jersey, and that
(05:22):
was ultimately funded mostly by his family, and it's ultimately
a business failure for him. He really struggled in business.
I mean, his company went bankrupt a lot.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
But the one thing that he was was a salesman.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And there are stories and basically hawking his own firearms
on the battlefield to try to get people to purchase
his firearms. So what he maybe lacked in complete business
management prowess, he made up for in making people excited
for his product. One of the more iconic revolvers that
(05:54):
came after the Patterson and all the different variations of
the Patterson was the Walker Revolver and it was ultimately
designed in concert with a Texas ranger named Samuel Walker,
and it was used by them on the battlefield in Texas.
And it was a big gun, heavy caliber, kind of
(06:14):
had some issues. You see the incorporation of what's called
a loading lever, so it actually swings down and helps
to load the gun to pack it in.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Unfortunately, if you fired one.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Like I have, the loading lever didn't have any type
of catch, so it would often fall down and get
stuck in the cylinder and you'd have to push it
back up and then fire it again. But still revolutionary
for its time. But it was one of those things
that I mean, I can't even imagine being on the
battlefield and not being familiar with a revolver and expecting
a single shot gun and then coming at the barrel
(06:48):
of a repeating firearm that doesn't have to be reloaded
every time.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
So it's one of.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Those things that is progressive and also incites a lot
of fear into people who are on the receiving end
of it.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
And the really interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Thing about this patent that is a smart move for
Colt is that he owned the legal right to make
this type of technology, so he basically, even though he
couldn't really get his stuff together always in his business side,
he had the market. Other people could not make that
gun in that configuration, and he actually was able to
(07:21):
get the patent extended, so it didn't expire until the
eighteen fifties, so you have the market for twenty years.
But there were people waiting in the wings, and Colt
did make some missteps and one of those missteps. Was
that he had a guy named Roland White who worked
for him, who developed this kind of ingenious piece of
technology where instead of having to awkwardly load the revolver
(07:44):
from the front of the cylinder, he actually made it
so it was called a board through cylinder, so you
actually could load it from the back of the gun,
which was really impressive for that time increase the speed
of everything. And he brought it to Colt and he
was like, look at this thing that I've got, and
Colt was like, no, we're good, thank you. And Roland
White would I always say it goes across the street
(08:05):
to Smith and Wesson, but that's.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Not really accurate.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
But he basically goes to Smith and Wesson, who would become,
you know, one of the other iconic names associated with
the revolver early.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
On in history.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And he has his own very complicated history of Smith
and Wesson. He takes its design. It's what Smith and
Wesson is known for. Unfortunately, he didn't make a great
deal with them as a war broke out where he
had to basically legally defend his patent. But when the
war breaks out and everyone has to make as many
farms as possible. There's a lot of patent infringement, and
(08:39):
he very much gets hit hard with that. Since Smith
and Wesson was smart enough to make the deal, but
we don't have to talk about Roland White. Colt messed
up and Smith and wasn't was smart. So as soon
as Colt's Patton expired, and I think believe eighteen fifty seven,
Smith and Wesson, you know, popped up quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And you've been listening to Ashley Lebinski tell the story
of Samuel Cult and it's a story about so much
from manufacturing two sales itself and salesmanship. When we come
back more of the story of Samuel Colt here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(09:44):
and the story of Samuel Colt. When we last left off,
it was with Roland White leaving Cult after his new
design was rejected. White took his board through idea over
to Cult's competitor, Smith and Wesson. Let's return to this
story of sam Coult with our storyteller, Ashley Thebinski.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So now you've got some competition in the market for Colt.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
You've got Colt, You've got Smith.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
And Wesson, you've got Remington all names that are still
pretty well known today for firearms, and in some way
some configuration are still around, and so everyone kind of
gets into the kind of mass production of firearms for
the American Civil War, which starts in eighteen sixty one,
so that's, you know, five years after, you start getting
(10:31):
more revolvers on the market, and handguns become a lot
more efficient on the battlefield. Prior to that, you know,
officers carried them, but in the Civil War you had
officers carrying handguns. But then you also had soldiers purchasing firearms,
including Colts. Prices were relatively reasonable, I guess for the time,
so you would have soldiers individuals that would buy the
(10:53):
gun if they were not issued anything. And so it
becomes kind of a change in the way that we
perceive technology on the battlefield, which is interesting because there's
a lot of repeating technology in rifle form that is
available during the Civil War, but it's not adopted as
readily and as passionately as people adopted the revolver. Samuel
(11:16):
Colt was not always known for being easy to get
along with, and while he was a great salesman and
a great inventor, he had some missteps towards the end
of his life, and one of the biggest issues in
one of the controversies that surrounded his life was not
(11:37):
leading up to the American Civil War, he had clients
down in the South that he continued to sell to
as tensions were brewing between the Union and the Confederacy,
and he did claim that the second the war broke
out or they knew what was happening that he was,
there were going to be no guns going down there.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
But the damage was already done.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Whatever his logic and reason were for continuing to supply
firearms to the South leading up to the war, it
really did so much damage to his personal reputation.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
And while he did.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Ultimately get a you know, a regiment or unit during
the Civil War, and hopefully he was hoping that would.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Help everything, they did go on.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Colonel sam Cooletzon he got that title before he died
in eighteen sixty two of rheumatism. So the fascinating part
of this story is that a lot of the guns
that we associate quote unquote with cult, you know, the
cult single Action the Western Colts, had nothing to do with.
And a lot of people, you know, still associate his
(12:40):
name with designs that happened a decade after he died,
and it's kind of all held together by his widow,
who is, in my opinion, responsible for the cult legacy
continuing on. She her name was Elizabeth Jarvis Colts. She
was born to a socialite family in Hartford, Connecticut, where
(13:01):
the factory would end up, and she very quickly overnight
becomes the major shareholder of Colt's patent firearms manufacturing company.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
And one of the things that.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Also is really she's really passionate about is her father's
an episcopal minister, so she will stay very close to
the church and charity for the rest of her life.
She was one of the richest women in America at
the time. She inherited millions of dollars and the controlling
interest in Colt. Her brother actually ran the company for
(13:33):
a little bit after another designer who had taken over
the company, Alicia k. Root, died and she had a
tragic story as well. So she lost her husband, but
she also lost initially two children in infancy. She was
pregnant when Colt died, and I believe she lost one
other child, so her only surviving child was someone named
(13:56):
Coldwell Colt and so she was kind of marred by
all of that tragedy, but she was so well liked
by the community that she was known as the first
Lady of Hartford, and that was because of her creation
of gardens, her love of the workers in the Cult Factory,
and her kind of hutzba for the fact that Confederate
(14:20):
sympathizers burned down the factory in eighteen sixty four, and
she rebuilt and she recreated this onion dome that was
iconic and associated with the factory.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
And she always took care of the workers that they had.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
The Cult manufacturing facility actually housed a lot of their workers.
They had sports teams for them, they had music performances,
they had educational opportunities for the families that worked for
the Cult factory, and she continued to really cultivate that environment.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And one of the things that she did, which was
probably more.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Or less successful, was she created a church on site
of kind of the entire Coltsville as it's called, and
one of her hopes was that executives and workers alike
could go and worship. And it's fascinating architecture. You can
go look at it today. It incorporates so many facets
of technology, you know, revolving cylinders built into the architecture tools.
(15:19):
I mean everywhere there's something related to firearms. And of
course she had to mortalize her husband in many, many
different ways. She had statues erected where he's you know,
whittling the wood model of his colt. And she also
included a beautiful stained glass pane in the church where
(15:43):
she casually incorporated Sam cult into a biblical legend. So
she wanted to not only run a successful company and
take care of people in Hartford, she also immortalized his lifetime.
And to some extent, you hear stories about Sam Coult
and they're not in a very favorable light. He was
difficult to get along with, and he he struggled sometimes
(16:06):
as a businessman, and so when you hear cold today,
you don't always hear that story. And I think Elizabeth
played a very big role in kind of rebranding him
after his passing and creating all of these things where
his statue surrounded by community prosperity.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
And it changed a little bit of the way that
the company was perceived. Now.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
She died in nineteen oh five, so she outlived her
husband significantly. But Cold really was getting started at that point,
and so her legacy kind of still stands with all
of the gardens. She actually took her property Arms Mirror
the house that she and Cold had you lived in
built together, and she turned it into a home for
(16:53):
the widows of Episcopal minister.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
So she kind of comes.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Full circle with all of that taking care of people
in the community. But there are also some iconic developments
that happened that put Colt on the map in terms
of design and functionality and the future of the company.
And this is done by several designers that work for
the factory whose names are lesser known, and that would
(17:18):
be the designers of the Colt Model eighteen seventy three
single action army, which has been seen in pretty much
every Western film ever made.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
And then also they were on.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
The forefront of automatic technology. Automatic technology, very loosely, is
that you have a gun where you press the trigger
and it continuously fires until you either release the trigger,
you run out of ammunition, which happened most of the time.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Or the fire malfunction.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And they worked with a very well known designer named
John Moses Browning early on to create what's called the
Colt Model eighteen ninety five, so believe that you have
machine guns in eighteen ninety five that are being used
at the Battle of San Juan Hill.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
In eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
And then you also work with Browning to create a
semi automatic pistol. Semi automatic technology means every time you
press the trigger fires one round, but it automatically re
chambers and rounds you can fire another one. And the
gun that's most associated with that, although there were various
versions before, this is the Cold Model nineteen eleven, which
is still very very popular today. So you've got a
(18:21):
man with an idea, you've got a troublemaker with an idea.
You've got a personality with an idea, and he takes
that and he, while not always successful, surrounds himself with
people that do also know what they're doing. And I
guess to some extent, he surrounds himself with the right
woman because she was able to, you know, really be
the face of the company and run the company with
(18:42):
her brother for a little bit and basically build up
this entire reputation for her husband.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It's kind of sad that.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
We don't always hear her name, because you've got a
woman you know that's now inheriting a major manufacturing facility
after her husband's death and rebuilds when she needs to build,
and does saw much for a community, and because of
her generosity, because of her charity, I think we remember
sam Colt in a different light, and she's ultimately responsible
(19:13):
for how we perceive you all of that today for good,
bad and indifferent, I guess.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
And a terrific job on the production by Greg Hengler
and a special thanks to Ashley Lebinski, the former co
host of the Discovery Channel's Master of Arms, the former
curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum and president
of the Gun Code. And she was so right. He
was a troublemaker and a person with an idea, he
(19:42):
said of Samuel Colt. And he surrounded himself with the
right people and in the end the right woman. And
after his premature death in eighteen sixty two, is bride
Elizabeth would live another few decades and set the company
right and set up Colt for even greater success and recognition.
(20:03):
The story of Samuel Colt and the birth of the
Revolver here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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