John Samuel Colt

John Samuel Colt

Special Agent, U.S. Bureau of Investigation (BOI)

Born: November 1, 1880

Father: Caldwell Hart Colt (1858 to 1894)
Mother: Arrabella
Enrolled, Yale University: Fall 1897
Graduated, Bachelor of Sciences, Mechanical Engineering: Spring 1900
Enrolled, University of Venice: Fall 1900
Enlisted, United States Army: Summer 1900
Promoted to Corporal, USA: Fall 1900
Entered USA Officer Candidates School: Winter 1901
Promoted to 2nd Lieutenant, USA: Spring 1901
Posted to United States Embassy, Berlin, Prussia (Germany): Winter 1902
Promoted to 1st Lieutenant, USA: Spring 1903
Posted to Army Intelligence, Philadelphia, PA: Winter 1904
Posted to USA Military Garrison, Washington, DC: Winter 1905
Posted to USA Department of the West (Utah): Winter 1906
Promoted to Captain, USA: Winter 1907
Mustered Out, United States Army: Spring 1909
Joined US Bureau of Investigation (BOI): Summer 1910

Family:
John Samuel Colt’s mother, Arrabella French (September 22, 1861 to June 5, 1891), was the
daughter of Maj. Gen. William Henry French (January 13, 1815 to May 20, 1881), a career
officer in the Union Army who was present at the Union surrender in 1862.

French rose to serve as Chief of Staff of the Army (the senior staff officer under the
commanding General-in-Chief) before his retirement in 1880. He was married to Caroline
Conklin (1820 to 1884). They had five children: Frank French, (1842 to 1865); Anita Rosetta
(Clem) (1852 to 1899); Frederick French (1855 to 1906); George French (1857 to 1895); and
Arrabella (Colt) (1861 to 1891).

French’s second child, and oldest daughter, Anita Rosetta French (April 2, 1852 to August 15,
1899), was the wife of Union Secretary of Agriculture John Joseph (“Johnny”) Clem (Clem is
thus John Samuel Colt’s uncle by marriage).

John Joseph Clem (“Johnny Clem”)

United States Secretary of Agriculture

Colt’s father was Caldwell Hart Colt (November 24, 1858 to January 21, 1894), President of
the Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company, and only son of Samuel Colt (July 19,
1814 to January 10, 1862), American inventor and industrialist. From Hartford, Connecticut,
he founded the company that bears his name. Colt’s primary contribution was to make the
mass-production of the revolver commercially viable for the first time.

Caldwell Colt's first two business ventures ended in disappointment. His first attempt at
manufacturing firearms in Paterson, New Jersey, occurred during an economic crisis in the
US, leading to poor sales, and was further hampered by Colt's reputed mismanagement and
reckless spending. His next attempt at arms making, underwater mines for the US Navy,
failed due to lack of Congressional support. After the Texas Rangers ordered 1,000 of his
revolvers during the First Mexican War (1847), his business expanded rapidly.

His factory in Hartford built the guns used as sidearms by both the North and the South in
the American Civil War, and later his firearms were credited with taming the western
frontier. A second plant in London closed after four years because of poor sales to the
British military, although it reopened under the stewardship of Caldwell Colt as a means of
providing direct sales to the victorious Confederate States, following the War of Secession.
Colt died in 1862, before the end of that conflict, one of the wealthiest men in America. In
1867, his widow, Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, commissioned the building of the Church of the Good
Shepherd in Hartford as a memorial to him and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Colt's manufacturing methods, directed at beating his competition, were at the forefront of
the Industrial Revolution. He was the first industrialist to successfully employ the assembly
line, due to his use of interchangeable parts. Beyond building arms, his innovative use of art,
celebrity endorsements and corporate gifts to promote his wares made him a pioneer in the
fields of advertising, product placement and mass marketing. He received criticism during
his lifetime and after his death for promoting his arms through bribes, threats and
monopoly.

Historians have stated that his patents acted as an impediment to arms production during
his lifetime, and that his personal vanity kept his own company from being able to produce a
cartridge firearm until 10 years after his death when a patent, filed by a gunsmith he had
fired, Rollin White, expired in 1872.

Caldwell Colt followed in his father's footsteps as a gun maker, in 1879 designing the Colt
double-barrel rifle. This rifle was chambered in .45-70 Government, and is one of the rarest
Colt firearms ever made. He took a seat on the Board of Directors of the manufacturing
company, which was dominated by his uncle, Richard Jarvis, and his elder half-brother,
Samuel Caldwell (“S.C.”) Colt.

Caldwell Colt drowned in 1894, at the age of 36, near Punta Gorda, Florida while piloting his
ship, “The Dauntless.” His mother Elizabeth Jarvis Colt had a Parish House built near
Armsmear in his name opposite the Church of the Good Shepherd. Caldwell’s only son, John
Samuel Colt, inherited the bulk of his father’s personal fortune.

Colt Manufacturing Company

Samuel Caldwell Colt had been born in November 1841 in Philadelphia, in the midst of the
celebrated murder trial of John Caldwell Colt, the brother of Samuel the Elder. As events
proved out, Samuel Caldwell (“S.C.”) was the son of Samuel by Caroline Henshaw, through a
marriage that had been legally contracted in the United Kingdom (Scotland) in 1838. S.C.
Colt was awarded a substantial cash settlement as part of Samuel’s will, and he decided to
use that money to establish a base within the company.

Samuel Colt’s death at the almost exact time that the Union was split asunder by the
cessation of hostilities and recognition of the independent Confederacy left a vacuum in the
manufacturing company, and opened it up for an internal civil war of its own.

The elder Colt’s will and prior business arrangements called for Elisha Root, his close friend
and firearms engineer, to take the helm as President of Colt Manufacturing. But the dead
man’s brother-in-law, Richard William Hart Jarvis, had other plans, and he used the Board of
Directors to eject Root, taking the presidency and chairmanship, relegating the defeated
technician to the emeritus post of Vice Chairman—and planting a seething desire for
vengeance in the man.

On February 4, 1864, a fire destroyed most of the factory, including arms, machinery, plans,
and factory records. On September 1, 1865 Root died, leaving the company firmly in Jarvis’
control, but bequeathing his shares of stock—and his title as Vice Chairman—to Samuel
Caldwell Colt. Facing the possibility of firing 800 employees and closing its largest factory,
Jarvis agreed to allow S.C. to invest $2 million in upgrading both the U.S. factory, and
reopening the dormant British plant. S.C. also demanded that the company begin selling
large shipments of arms to the new Confederate States.

For the next 36 years, until Jarvis’ retirement as president and chairman of the board, he and
S.C. were locked in an uneasy state of “Cold War” (a term that was actually coined in The
New-York Times to describe the state of affairs within the company’s boardroom. With that
board’s blessing (and Jarvis’ grudging acceptance), S.C. reopened the company plant in
London, but where his father had lost money trying unsuccessfully to sell to the British
Army, S.C. signed lucrative contracts with the German, Spanish, and Low Countries
governments—which succeeded in driving the British High Command into his arms. The
London factory also served (and serves) as the primary manufacturer of arms for the
Confederate States militaries.

S.C. Colt (Samuel Colt II)

President and Chairman of the Board
Colt Manufacturing Company

Towards the end of his short life, Caldwell Hart Colt, who served as the company’s Vice-
President of Manufacturing, and the Confederate High Command—mostly in the person of
Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, Jr., chief of the Confederate General Staff—knocked heads concerning
fulfillment issues, matters made more personal by Caldwell’s disdain for the CSA’s treatment
of its now-(officially) manumitted ex-slaves, and the Confederate general’s own personal
attitude to the general manager of the manufacturing company, Frederick Douglass, a
former slave and a close personal friend of Caldwell’s.

Upon Jarvis’ retirement, his duties were taken over by S.C., who assumed the presidency
and chairmanship. In recent years, S.C. Colt has taken to referring to himself as “Samuel Colt
II.”