For a year Pullman had four thousand men constantly employed in raising the ground, laying out streets, and building shops and residences. When they finished he was ready for the seven thousand employees engaged in building the Pullman cars.
COLT AND HIS REVOLVER.
Not Until It Had Been Used in Two Wars
Was Inventor Able to Demonstrate
Its Effectiveness.
Samuel Colt, whose revolver was the pioneer of all practical rapid-fire arms, was ten years old when he was taken out of school and put to work in his father's silk and woolen mill in Hartford, Connecticut. At fourteen he was doing a man's work in the dyeing department of the establishment, but he wasn't getting a man's pay, for his father did not think it worth while to pay money to a member of the family. So in 1828, when he was fourteen, Samuel Colt ran away to sea, shipping on an India merchantman.
It was on this voyage that young Colt conceived the idea and made a rough wooden model of the first revolver. He fashioned it with a jack-knife, and figured the mechanical details out on a piece of paper. On his return from sea the following year he made a rough iron model of it, but it did not work satisfactorily. His mechanical knowledge was not sufficient to enable him to remedy the defects, and he had to go back to work for his father.
The question of pay came up again, and it was settled as before by young Colt leaving and striking out on his own account. This time it was as a lecturer on chemistry, for in the dyeing department he had gained a fair idea of the subject.
Investors Were Timorous.
His lectures brought him money enough to enable him to continue his work, and in 1835 he patented his first revolver. It was a heavy, cumbersome affair, but the device whereby the various chambers were brought in line with a single barrel put it far ahead of all previous revolvers and double, triple, and quadruple barreled pistols.
The easiest part of Colt's work was the invention of the weapon. The hard part came when he organized a company and started in to manufacture fire-arms. Investors didn't care for the idea, and in 1842 the Colt Manufacturing Company suspended for lack of funds.
"I'll give you one thousand dollars for the entire rights to the thing," said a Hartford business man to Colt.