Many people will not immediately recognize the name of "The Patent Arms Manufacturing Company", but they will recognize the man who started the company, a man who is perhaps the most famous gun maker of all time: Samuel Colt.
Samuel Colt was born in Hartford during the War of 1812 on July 19th, 1814.
His maternal Grandfather was Major John Caldwell who served in the Continental Army during the Revolution.
There were a couple of things that interested Colt as a young man: his Grandfather's flintlock pistol and a book entitled The Compendium of Knowledge.
The book contained stories of inventors who had created or discovered things once thought impossible....Colt wanted to be one of those men.
As a young man Colt spent time learning the seaman's trade and during his time aboard ship he had witnessed how the ratchet and pawl mechanism of the windlass, or capstan as it was known then, worked.
Colt thought he could build a repeating pistol that used a round cylinder, with the cylinders moved in line with the barrel by a pawl and ratchet mechanism like the capstan.
When Colt returned the United States in 1832, he went to work for his father who agreed to finance a couple of prototype firearms. Colt's first pistol didn't survive the firing test and his father's patience had worn out.
Colt needed a source of financing, so he went on the road and assumed various identities (one of which was "the celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta") showing demonstrations of nitrous oxide and other scientific oddities. His motivation was three-fold: to make money, learn how to speak to crowds (and be convincing) and also to help open peoples minds towards new ideas.
In 1835 and 1836 Colt received patents in England and the U.S. respectively for his revolver design. These patents would provide Colt with a monopoly on the revolver for 21 years.
With some borrowed money and a few investors Colt founded his first company on March 5th 1836. The company was named: The Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey. Colt didn't own a majority share, but he was given a share of each pistol sold in return for "loaning" his patent to the new company. He was however the first employee and designer of the gun, so the revolver and Colt name became synonymous.
A Colt Paterson revolver serial number 979, probably made in 1837.
The factory was a brick, 4 story building on the banks of the Passiac river in Paterson New Jersey. The property had been the former sight of a nail and rolling mill. The building contained a central stairway tower and the bell tower was capped with a weather vane shaped like a gun. A picket fence surrounded the grounds with the pickets cut into the shape of guns.
By 1842 the company was going under. Colt had spent too much and sold too little. Only 2,800 or so Colt Paterson revolvers were built.
Today the Colt Paterson revolvers are very collectable, the one below sold at auction in 2011 for nearly $1 Million, see the story here
After the Patent Arms Company went under the factory was turned over to a silk operation, later it was operated by various endeavors and parts of the factory dismantled. It was finally shuttered in 1983.
The ruins of the factory still exist. You can find them on the east bank of the Passiac River where Van Houten and Mill Street form a bend
The following pictures were sourced from various websites, see the credits below for links
Of course that was not the end of the story for Samuel Colt, I will cover the rest of the story in another post regarding his Hartford Connecticut factory.
Credits
Paterson Great Falls
CT Inventor
Accurate Shooter
The Forgotten Past of New Jersey
Wikipedia
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