Colt took a couple of days to think it over. He did not have any money or any prospect of money, and a thousand dollars was a big temptation. However, he decided not to take it.
"It wouldn't pay me for the work I put into it," he said. "I'm going to try again."
The new attempt met with more success, for toward the end of the Seminole War in Florida the United States soldiers had begun to appreciate the effectiveness of the Colt revolver. Then the adventurers in Texas and through the Middle West came to look upon the six-shooter as the most valuable part of their outfit, and there was a sufficiently large band of these adventurers to cause a fair-sized demand. This enabled the Colt Company to struggle on until the Mexican War became certain.
Then General Taylor, who had used the Colt revolver in his Indian campaigns, recommended that the United States troops be furnished with it. The little factory in Hartford suddenly found itself confronted with an order for twenty thousand revolvers. It was necessary to work day and night to meet the demand, and while this was going on Colt enlarged his place of business in anticipation of future orders of like magnitude. They came plentifully enough during the two years of the Mexican War, for the Colt was the only small arm that played any part in that contest.
After the war, business did not fall off materially, for the great Western migration was on, and every one who made it went armed. The pioneer and the traveler depended upon the Colt in an emergency, and the workmanship was so good that the revolver itself never failed. It played a great part again in the Civil War, for most of the Northern troops, in addition to their Springfield rifles, carried Colt revolvers. Thus the idea that a runaway boy evolved during his trip to India helped to win the Mexican War, to settle the West, and to decide the Civil War.
THE FIRST EXPRESSMAN.
A Great Industry Began When a Man Decided
to Carry Parcels Between
Boston and New York.
William Frederick Harnden, when quite a young man, worn out by his sixteen hours a day work in the office of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, came to New York for a short rest. That was in 1839, and there were in the United States 2,818 miles of railroad, all built within the previous ten years, as against the 212,000 or more miles that exist at present. There was no express company in those days, so Harnden said to a friend, James W. Hale:
"I'm sick of working in a railroad office. Do you know, I think that I could make a living doing errands between New York and Boston for people?"
Hale took up the idea at once. He was employed in the Hudson Newsroom, at the corner of Wall and Water Streets, and one of his duties was to bring papers down to the Boston boat on its tri-weekly trips. Besides the papers, he also carried various consignments of money, or parcels from persons who could not get down to the boats themselves. These parcels were then turned over to some passenger who was willing to deliver them.