On This Day in the Old West August 8

 Not a whole lot going on in the history books on August 8, but I found an interesting patent. On August 8, 1854, Smith and Wesson received Patent No. 11,496 for “a self-contained metallic cartridge.”

Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson both came from old New England families. Horace learned about making firearms from working with the National Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. Daniel apprenticed with his brother Edwin, the leading creator of target rifles and pistols in the 1840s. The two met and formed their first partnership in 1852 in Norwich, Connecticut. Their aim was to market a lever action repeating pistol that could utilize a fully self-contained cartridge.

Their first pistol venture did not sell well and by 1854 the company was facing financial difficulties. Smith and Wesson were forced to sell their company to a shirt manufacturer named Oliver Winchester. Using Smith and Wesson’s original lever action design, Oliver later created the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. After the sale of the company, Smith left and returned to his hometown, while Wesson stayed on as plant manager for Winchester.

In 1856, Samuel Colt’s patent on the revolver was set to expire. Wesson began developing the prototype for a cartridge revolver. His research led to the discovery that he would need a certain component for his invention—a component whose patent was held by a former Colt employee named Rollin White. Wesson reconnected with Smith, and the two partners approached White to create a newly designed revolver and cartridge combination. The two men reformed their partnership, calling their company the Smith and Wesson Revolver Company, later to be known simply as the Smith and Wesson Company. Rather than make White a partner in their company, they simply paid him 25 cents for every revolver they made, leaving him to defend his patent with his own money and later leading to his bankruptcy.

“The Volcanic” was the first successful fully self-contained cartridge revolver available in the world, utilizing the Rimfire cartridge patented on August 8, 1854. The men then secured patents for the revolver itself to prevent other manufacturers from producing a similar gun. Smith and Wesson was now a very lucrative business. However, the partners realized that, when their patents expired, they would need a new design to keep their market superiority. In 1869, the new gun was completed and Smith and Wesson began marketing it the following year. The Model 3 American, as it was known in the United States, was the first large caliber cartridge revolver and it established the company as a world leader in handgun manufacturing. 

J.E.S. Hays
www.jeshays.com
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