The Men who worked for Colt

 While doing research on gun makers and gun companies I kept running into a fact that always amazed me. The sheer number of gun makers (and other company founders) that worked at Colt.

Colt was as much a gun factory as it was a university for entrepreneurs and gun makers.

After establishing his factory, Colt employed some new and uniquely American ideas. One of them was the assembly line, in which each employee would have a task or two to complete, then send the part(s) to the next employee for their task. This made the worker much more efficient. 

Another American idea was the use of interchangeable parts, this made manufacturing cheaper, faster and meant that the people putting the parts together did not need special skills as the parts didn't need much fitting.

Lastly, and this is an important one, Colt installed a library and would encourage his employees to learn to read or further their education.

Francis A. Pratt worked at Colt before partnering with another Colt employee Amos Whitney. In 1860 the two started a machine tool business to make tools for the gun and sewing machine industry, among others. 

Pratt & Whitney today is a subsidiary of Raytheon and makes jet engines.

John Marlin, before founding Marlin Firearms in 1870, worked at the Colt Armory in Hartford.

Christopher Spencer worked for Colt before cofounding several gun companies including Roper Sporting Arms/Billings & Spencer (which became part of Crescent Tool Co) and Spencer Arms Co.

Lucius M Diehm worked for Colt before going off on his own and founding the Hartford Arms Company, to make a copy of the Colt Woodsman. The company would be bought by Carl Swebilius the pistol became the 1st gun for High Standard Co.

Rollin White worked for Colt and pushed to develop and patent the bored through cylinder for revolvers. When Colt seemed disinterested, White patented the idea himself and licensed it to rival Smith & Wesson, without which they may never have made it in the gun industry.

Hugo Borchardt worked for Colt for a year of two, he would eventually go on to build the predecessor to the Mauser C96 Broom Handle and the Luger pistol as well as the predecessor to the 7.25 Mauser cartridge. A cartridge which led to the 9mm Luger and the 7.62 Tokarev cartridge.

Joshua Stevens worked for Colt before cofounding the Massachusetts Arms Company and J. Stevens & Company, the latter of which developed the .22 Long Rifle cartridge.

Andrew Fyrberg worked for Colt and Iver Johnson before starting his own company. He sold the company to Sears who renamed it the Meriden Firearms Co. He later started another company: Andrew Fyrberg & Sons Manufacturing Company. He is known for having created the modern transfer bar safety for revolvers.

Robert Hillberg worked for Colt and others before cofounding the Whitney Firearms Company to build the Whitney Wolverine.

Doug McLennahan worked for Colt, Ruger and High Standard before taking what he learned and starting his own revolver company: Charter Arms

Harry Sefried worked for Colt, High Standard and others before landing at Ruger. He helped develop the Colt Python and other revolvers while at Colt. At Ruger he had a hand in nearly every gun developed there in the 60's and 70's.

Karl Lewis worked for Colt, before going to Browning then High-Standard. He had designed his own revolver which got the attention of Dan Wesson III. In 1968 they co-founded Dan Wesson Arms to build Lewis' revolver.

William Mason worked for Remington Arms where he developed the swing out cylinder for revolvers, in 1866 he went to work for Colt where he worked on the development of the Single Action Army revolver.

While at Colt he also developed conversions for cap and ball revolvers to fire modern metallic ammo. In 1889 Colt was the first company to produce a swing out cylinder, thanks to William Mason. In 1882 Mason went to work for Winchester where he went on to help design and perfect rifles.