Samuel Colt the Boy

Have Cannon, Will Explode

Oct 2, 2006 Mary Trotter Kion

Sam Colt, at age four, causes his first explosion. It was far from his last one. There were many explosions to come before he invented the firearm that made him famous.

Samuel Colt was the inventor of the first "practical revolving-cylinder gun with automatic revolution and locking of cylinder, both accomplished by cocking the hammer."

An Explosive Beginning

Samuel Colt was born in 1814, in Hartford, Connecticut. At the age of four, he was given a miniature brass cannon. It was the kind of toy that any normal boy would have stood behind and yelled, "Boom, boom!" But that was just to boring for this inquisitive child.

No Boom-Boom For This Boy

Instead of yelling out a sound for the little cannon, Sam took some gunpowder from his father’s hunting horn. He tamped it into the cannon, surely just as he had often seen his father do with his own muzzleloader. Then, taking a long stick he set fire to the end of it, and touched off the cannon. The blast blew the toy cannon apart and Sam was knocked flat. He was overjoyed at the effect.

A Glimpse Into The Future

Who could have foreseen, back in about 1818, that that explosive experiment was only the first spark of a larger endeavor. It would be an undertaking that would much later produced the Walker Colt .44-caliber six-shooter, a firearm that many considered "superior even to the later, fabulous Peacemaker."

Sam’s miniature cannon explosion didn’t cure his curiosity about firearms. Three years later, Sam came into possession of an old horse pistol. The ancient gun didn’t work but that didn’t daunt Sam any. He swiped some items from his home and a traded them to a gunsmith in return for repairing the pistol.

An Even Bigger Boom!

Now in possession of a gun in working condition Sam had to try the weapon out. A little later when a loud roar came from a nearby valley members of Sam’s family came rushing toward the direction of the frightening sound. When they saw young Sam they wanted to know what the loud noise had been. Sam, having already stashed the gun out of sight, merely claimed that he hadn’t heard any unusual sound.

Samuel Colt, The Boy: Have Cannon, Will Explode continues with A Motherless Boy: Sam Colt Becomes an Indentured Servant.

The copyright of the article Samuel Colt the Boy in American History is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish Samuel Colt the Boy in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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