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AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

WORKAHOLICS

Developing a book about Colt firearms has been an eye-opening experience. I have always been a particular fan of history and there is plenty of it here – almost two centuries of personality, intrigue and genius.

Most writers begin to spin the Colt narrative at a point where the young Sam, who is perhaps 14 years old, is sitting under a tree. There, he begins to dismantle, and then to reconstruct, an Andy Jackson-era handgun. Perhaps the story is true. It sounds a little too similar to the myth of Isaac Newton’s inspiration about the theory of gravity – he is sitting in a garden and a falling apple hits him on the head – for my taste.

In both cases, the problem with these myths is that genius is evident long before the age of 17, before Samuel Colt spent a year at sea and conceptualized, in the whirling ship’s capstan, an application to a repeating firearm. And it is not “simple” genius – if something so mysterious and complex could be considered simple – that changes the world. It is genius with some other element: curiosity or opportunity, for instance. It is genius with application that changes the world.

In the case of Colt and Newton – and John Browning, another famous name inextricably linked to the Colt enterprise – that additional element was some inner drive that we have of late labeled “workaholic,” as if to be consumed with one’s life work or hobby or obsession was a bad thing!

Thank goodness Sam Colt was a workaholic, that he had a vision and enough motivation to “make it happen.” It is unfortunate that poor health and an early death at 48 may have been the consequence, but the world is certainly a different place because of his struggles and almost single-minded dedication to succeed.