<P> In 1829, at the age of 15, Colt began working in his father's textile plant in Ware, Massachusetts, where he had access to tools, materials, and the factory workers' expertise . Following the encyclopedia, Samuel built a homemade galvanic cell and advertised as a Fourth of July event in that year that he would blow up a raft on Ware Pond using underwater explosives; although the raft was missed, the explosion was still impressive . Sent to boarding school, he amused his classmates with pyrotechnics . In 1830, a July 4 accident caused a fire that ended his schooling, and his father sent him off to learn the seaman's trade . On a voyage to Calcutta on board the brig Corvo, he noticed that regardless of which way the ship's wheel was spun, each spoke always came in direct line with a clutch that could be set to hold it . He later said that this gave him the idea for the revolver . On the Corvo, Colt made a wooden model of a pepperbox revolver out of scrap wood . It differed from other pepperbox revolvers at the time in that it would allow the shooter to rotate the cylinder by the action of cocking the hammer with an attached pawl turning the cylinder which is then locked firmly in alignment with one of the barrels by a bolt, a great improvement over the pepperbox designs which required rotating the barrels by hand and hoping for proper indexing and alignment . </P> <P> When Colt returned to the United States in 1832, he went back to work for his father, who financed the production of two guns, a rifle and a pistol . The first completed pistol exploded when it was fired, but the rifle performed well . His father would not finance any further development, so Samuel needed to find a way to pay for the development of his ideas . He had learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from the factory chemist in his father's textile plant, so he took a portable lab on the road and earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada, billing himself as "the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New - York, London and Calcutta". Colt conceived of himself as a man of science and thought if he could enlighten people about a new idea like nitrous oxide, he could in turn make people more receptive to his new idea concerning a revolver . He started his lectures on street corners and soon worked his way up to lecture halls and museums . As ticket sales declined, Colt realized that "serious" museum lectures were not what the people wanted to pay money to see and that it was dramatic stories of salvation and redemption the public craved . While visiting his brother, John, in Cincinnati, he partnered with sculptor, Hiram Powers, for his demonstrations with a theme based on The Divine Comedy . Powers made detailed wax sculptures and paintings based on demons, centaurs and mummies from Dante . Colt constructed fireworks to complete the show, which was a success . According to Colt historian Robert Lawrence Wilson, the "lectures launched Colt's celebrated career as a pioneer Madison Avenue - style pitchman". His public speaking skills were so prized that he was thought to be a doctor and was pressed into service to cure an apparent cholera epidemic on board a riverboat by giving his patients a dose of nitrous oxide . </P> <P> Having some money saved and, still wanting to be an inventor as opposed to a "medicine man", Colt made arrangements to begin building guns using proper gunsmiths from Baltimore, Maryland . He abandoned the idea of a multiple barreled revolver and opted for a single fixed barrel design with a rotating cylinder . The action of the hammer would align the cylinder bores with the single barrel . He sought the counsel of a friend of his father, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, who loaned him $300 and advised him to perfect his prototype before applying for a patent . Colt hired a gunsmith by the name of John Pearson to build his revolver . Over the next few years Colt and Pearson fought over money, but the design improved and in 1835 Colt was ready to apply for his U.S. patent . Ellsworth was now the superintendent of the U.S. Patent Office and advised Colt to file for foreign patents first as a prior U.S. patent would keep Colt from filing a patent in Great Britain . In August 1835, Colt left for England and France to secure his foreign patent . </P> <P> In 1835, Samuel Colt traveled to the United Kingdom, following in the footsteps of Elisha Collier, a Bostonian who had patented a revolving flintlock there that achieved great popularity . Despite the reluctance of English officials to issue a patent to Colt, no fault could be found with the gun and he was issued his first patent (Number 6909). Upon his return to America, he applied for his U.S. patent for a "revolving gun"; he was granted the patent on February 25, 1836 (later numbered 9430X). This instrument and patent No. 1304, dated August 29, 1836, protected the basic principles of his revolving - breech loading, folding trigger firearm named the Colt Paterson . </P>

When was the revolver with interchangeable parts invented