Samuel Colt Samuel Colt Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, businessman, and hunter. He founded Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company (today Colt's Manufacturing Company) and made the mass production of the revolver commercially viable. Colt's first two business ventures were producing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey and making underwater mines; both ended in disappointment. But 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 both to the North and the South. Later,
Colt New Line Colt New Line The Colt New Line was a single action pocket revolver introduced by the Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company in 1873. Two years after the Colt House Revolver (1871), a year after the Colt Open Top (1872) and almost simultaneously alongside the Colt Peacemaker (1873), the Colt New Line was one of the first metallic cartridge rear-loading revolvers manufactured by Colt's. It was, alongside the Colt Open Top Pocket Model Revolver (1871), one of the first pocket metallic cartridge revolvers made by the company. When the Rollin White patent for metallic cartridges firearms manufacture expired (c. 1870)