Samuel Colt was an inventor and manufacturer from Connecticut who patented his first revolver type handgun at his plant, Patent Arms Company in Patterson, New Jersey.
His first pistol, marketed from 1836-42 was poorly made. Using the improvements offered by Captain Samuel H. Walker of the Texas Rangers, Colt produced his 1847 model, “The Walker Colt” which proved a great success.
He received a government contract for 1,100 of the revolver for use in the Mexican War and thus was able once again to open a weapons plant, this time in Hartford, Connecticut. Gun sales soared , especially during the Civil War.
The next improvement was the move in 1873 from percussion cap-fired ammunition (loose powder and ball in a paper or linen cartridge) to newly invented metal cartridge containing its own primer and powder and bullet at the end of a copper or brass tube. The first pistol to fire this new ammo was called the “Peacemaker” and was often referred to as “the gun that won the West”.
Other inventions credited to Colt were a submarine battery used in harbor defense and a submarine telegraph cable.