I started researching my family in 1998, and has been my passion ever since. I hope you can find some information to connect my family to yours. It's always nice to meet new cousins!
Although this information is not copyrighted, please ask permission before copying information for your personal use
If you have some additional information you'd like to share, please feel free to contact me via e-mail 
A Geneology Collection by Debbie Mills
The Colt Revolver - Samuel Colt, a distant cousin
We are related to the Colt family through John Colt IV and Mercy Higley Colt. They had nine children; we descend from their second child, Jonathon, born in 1735. Their eigth son was Benjamin, born in 1751, and his grandson was Samuel Colt. He would be my second cousin six times removed.
Samuel Colt’s invention of a gun that would fire multiple shots without reloading greatly transformed the firearms industry. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, Colt first opened a firearms factory in Patterson, New Jersey in 1836. As the Mexican War progressed in the 1840’s, demand for Colt’s revolver grew. By 1855, Colt was back in Hartford with a new factory along the banks of the Connecticut River in an area known as the South Meadows. It was here that “the gun that won the West,” a popular slogan referring to the Colt .45 Peacemaker, was manufactured..
Profile of a wealthy American : Samuel Colt
The inventor of the gun that opened the West, Samuel Colt came from a Hartford family of merchants and bankers. His father, who had made and lost a fortune in the West India trade, lent him the money to produce two prototypes of a revolving pistol he had in mind and secure patents in England and France. In 1836, Samuel Colt received patent Nr 138 for his revolver. Backed by money from a cousin and some New Yorker investors, he founded the Patent Firearms Manufacturing Co in Paterson NJ, which failed six years later, after 2′700 guns had been made, but only few for the government, initially seen as the main potential customer. After some other ventures, notably in underwater cables with Samuel F. B. Morse, Colt returned to his invention and secured an order from Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers. The thousand colts were the produced in the Whitney factory of New Haven. Samuel Colt later built on the success of his revolvers with the Texas Rangers and hiring Elisha K. Root as a plant superintendant, he expanded his business applying modern manufacturing methods, such as interchangeable parts. Samuel Colt was a strong salesman, who knew how to create demand for his product. Towards the end of the 1850’s, he invested $ 2 million to build a giant armory on his South Meadows property near Hartford. This was right in time for the great expansion fuelled by Civil War, when the firms yearly profits jumped from 250′000 $ to over 1 million. Exhausted by his work and distressed by the death of his infant daughters, Samuel Colt died in 1862, when only fourty eight years old. He left his vast fortune to his widow, his only son and a favorite nephew, Samuel Caldwell Colt.
Search the Archive
Search for a specific term or browse through surnames below.