Historical Significance:

Long overlooked / undervalued by iron industry historians, in 1813 Samuel Colt became the first American ironmaster to successfully roll boiler plate (a key product in the Industrial Revolution), a full five years before the earliest documented boiler plate production by Dr. Charles Lukens at the Brandywine Rolling Mill in Coatesville, PA.

Samuel was born in 1777, in Richmond, Massachusetts. After the Revolutionary War, his father Jabez and uncle John had an iron works on the West Branch of the Housatonic River in nearby Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Their products included nails, axe heads and scythe blades. In the first decade of the 1800s, Samuel’s brother-in-law, Jeremiah H. Pierson, asked him to apply the experience he had gained at his father’s iron works to help run Pierson’s rolling mill and nail factory in Ramapo, New York. In the fall of 1812, Samuel Colt, his first cousin John Colt (who had recently been a shipping agent for his brother Roswell), Nicholas Delaplaine (a longtime ironmonger) and George Randall (a merchant) completed construction of a brand-new rolling and slitting mill in Paterson, New Jersey. The partnership was dissolved in February of 1813, when Randall left the business, and from then on the firm was known as “S. Colt & Company”.

By October of 1813, S. Colt & Co. was advertising boiler plate among the products at their New York City store; their rolling mill was likely designed with boiler plate in mind, as they offered it on Day One. Their success in this endeavor is borne out by the fact that they continuously advertised boiler plate in New York newspapers through 1821. They were also serving the Southern market with boiler plate, through agents Waldo & Freeman, as noted in a Charleston, NC newspaper ad from August 7, 1816. Delaplaine sold his interest to the Colts in 1818, and S. Colt & Company was dissolved in December of 1822, when John bought out Samuel’s interest. Samuel died in June of 1825 in Rochester, New York, and without his participation, the enterprise was defunct by 1826.

Interestingly, in 1836, the old rolling mill in Paterson was razed, and replaced by the gun factory of another Samuel Colt, the son of Samuel and John’s first cousin Christopher. Thus, the site of America’s first boiler plate rolling mill became the birthplace of one of America’s most iconic products, the Colt Revolver.

Iron and Steel Hall of Fame Induction - 2025