Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/737

Rh cers of the government and of the array and navy- objected to the percussion-cap, to the supposed lia- bility of the arm to get out of order, to the tend- ency of several of the charges to explode at the same time, and to the greater difficulty of repair- ing it than the arms in common use. These ob- jections Mr. Colt met by careful explanations, by repeated experiments, and by modifications in the construction of the weapon. In 1837, during the Florida war, the officers of the army were baffled in their attempts to drive tiie Indians from the Everglades, until a few of the troops, under the direction of Lieut.-Col. Harney, were armed with Colt's revolvers, and their success was such that more were at once ordered, and the Indians were easily disheartened and defeated when they found that their enemies could fire six or eight times without reloading. In 1842 the Patent Arms Com- pany were forced to suspend, the speedy conclusion of the Seminole war having put an end to their sales, and from that time till 1847 none of the repeating fire-arms were manufactured. Meantime the mar- ket was drained of them by the demand from Texas and the Indian frontier. In 1847, the Mexican war having begun. Gen. Taylor sent to Col. Colt for a supply. There were none to be had, but he contracted to make 1,000 for |28,000. He had parted with the last one to a Texan ranger, and, after advertising in vain for one to serve as a model, he was compelled to make a new model, and in so doing added improvements. This first thousand were made at an armory temporarily hired at Whitneyville, near New Haven, Conri. Other orders following immediately on the comple- tion of the first. Col. Colt procured more commodi- ous workshops at Hartford and filled the orders with promptness. The emigration to California, and afterward to Australia, increased the demand for the revolvers and assured the permanence of the business. Soon after the Mexican war, the suggestions derived from the use of these arms by the military forces led to improvements in their construction and to their adoption by the govern- ment of the United States as a regular weapon for the army. Subsequently the Crimean and Indian campaigns suggested still further improvements and simplifications. Finding in 1853 that more room and greater facilities for manufacturing were required. Col. Colt purchased a tract of meadow- land lying within the city limits of Hartford, about 250 acres in extent, protected it from the annual freshets of the Connecticut river by means of a dike, and there built an armory, consisting of two parallel buildings three stories high and 500 feet long, connected by a central building 250 feet in length, with other buildings for offices and ware- rooms. In 1861 a second building of the same size as the first was erected. All the balls, cartridges, bullet-moulds, powder-flasks, and lubricators are manufactured at the armory, and most of them, as well as the greater part of the machinery for manufacturing the arms, were the invention of Col. Colt or the development of his suggestions by skilful workmen. A part of the establishment is devoted to the manufacture of machinery for mak- ing the fire-arms elsewhere, which has already sup- plied a large portion of tlie machinery for the armory of the British government at Enfield, Eng- land, and the whole of that for the Russian gov- ernment armory at Tula. On the land enclosed by the dike he also erected dwellings for his em- ployes, the entire expenditure upon the grounds and buildings amounting to more than $2,500,000. The dwellings erected for the employes are unusu- ally comfortable and convenient. Col. Colt also pro- vided the workmen with a public hall, a library, courses of lectures, concerts, a set of instruments for a band of musicians, and a uniform for a military company organized among them. He invented also a submarine battery for the defence of harbors against naval attacks, and was the first to conceive and practically test the project of a submarine tele- graph-cable, having laid and operated with perfect success in 1843 such a cable from Coney Island and Fire Island to the city of New York, and from the Merchants' exchange to the mouth of the har- bor. This cable was insulated by being covered with-a combination of cotton yarn with asphaltum and beeswax, and the whole enclosed in a lead pipe, gutta percha being then unknown. A beautiful Episcopal cluirch was erected to his memory by his widow, who with their only son still continues the manufacture of arms.

COLTON, Calvin, clergyman, b. in Long- meadow, Mass., in 1789 ; d. in Savannah, Ga., 13 March, 1857. He was graduated at Yale in 1813, and at Andover seminary in 1815, and settled over the Presbyterian church in Batavia, N. Y. Subse- quently he entered the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal church, but relinquished preaching in 182G from failure of his voice. After a long tour through the United States, he went to England in 1831, as correspondent of the New York " Ob- server," and remained four years. After his re- turn to the United States he took orders in the Episcopal church, and published " Thoughts on the Religious State of the Country, and Reasons for Preferring Episcopacy." But he soon resumed the journalistic profession, and distinguished him- self as a writer of political tracts and articles ad- vocating the principles of the whig party. From 1842 till 1844 he edited the "True Whig" in Washington. In 1852 he became professor of po- litical economy in Trinity college, Hartford, Conn. He published in England "A Manual for Emi- grants to America," and " History and Character of American Revivals of Religion" (1832); also " The Americans, by an American in London " (1833) ; " American Cottager " and " A Tour of the Lakes " (1833) ; and " Church and State in Amer- ica, being a Reply to the Bishop of London." After his return from England he published " Four Years in Great Britain " (New York, 1835) ; " Prot- estant Jesuitism" (1836); "Abolition a Sedition " and " Abolition and Colonization Contrasted " (1838) ; " A Voice from America to England " (1839): "The Crisis of the Country"; "American Jacobinism " ; and " One Presidential Term " (1840). In 1840 appeared a series of political tracts called the " Junius Papers," which were widely circulated, and enlarged and republished in 1844. The same year he published " The Rights of Labor " (New York); in 1846, "Life and Times of Henry Clay," the materials for which he obtained from IMr. Clay, whom he visited for the purpose in 1844; and in 1848, " Public Economy for the United Slates," containing an elaborate argument in favor of the protective policy. While a professor at Trinity college he published " The Genius and Mission of the Episcopal Church in the United States " (New York, 1853), prepared for the ])ress tiie "Private Correspondence of Henry Clay " (1855), wrote " The Last Seven Years of the Life of Henry Clay" (1856), and edited the " Si)ceclies of Henry Clay." — His brother, Walter, autiior. b. in Rutland, \i., 9 May, 1797; d. in Philadeliihia. Pa.. 22 Jan., 1851, was graduated at Yale in 1822. and, after teacii- ing and studying theology at Andover, became in 1825 professor of moral philosoiihy and belles-l(>t- tres at Middletown academy, Conn. In 1828-"30