Elizabeth Jarvis Colt

Elizabeth Jarvis Colt (born Elizabeth Hart Jarvis; October 5, 1826 – August 23, 1905) was an American philanthropist and the widow and heir of firearms manufacturer Samuel Colt, founder of Colt's Manufacturing Company.

Early life

Elizabeth Hart Jarvis was born in Saybrook, Connecticut, to Reverend William Jarvis, an Episcopal Minister, and Elizabeth Jarvis. She was the eldest of five children in an affluent and socially prominent family. She "grew up in a lovely 1830s Greek Temple Revival house in Portland," which fell into disrepair and was threatened with demolition, but (as of 2017) may be moved and rehabilitated as part of other area development.

Marriage to Samuel Colt She met Samuel Colt in 1851 in Newport, Rhode Island, and the two were married in 1856 The couple resided at Armsmear.

The Colts had five children. Two died in infancy; a daughter, named Elizabeth, died at the age of three. In 1861, Samuel Colt died from complications associated with gout and left Elizabeth a pregnant widow. Seven months after his death, the baby was stillborn. Her brother, Richard Jarvis took over as president of the company in 1865, following the death of Elisha K. Root, and the two transitioned the company from the end of the American Civil War through the early 20th century, seeing the evolution from percussion revolvers to cartridge revolvers to semiautomatic pistols and machineguns.

Colt served for 22 years as the president of the Union for Home Work, an organization that provided daycare for the children of working mothers. She became the first President of the Hartford Soldiers Aid Society and, in 1869, organized the first Suffragette convention in Connecticut. For these actions, she was dubbed "The First Lady of Hartford".

Retirement and death

She sold her interest in Colt's Manufacturing Company in 1901. She was involved in society life in Hartford, CT and President of the Hartford Women's Auxiliary.

Colt died of paralysis in Newport, Rhode Island, on August 23, 1905. The Hartford Courant ran a full-page obituary of Colt on the front page of the newspaper the following day, calling her the "First Lady of Connecticut". It was the first time that the newspaper recognized the death of a woman in this manner.

As part of her will, Colt left a sizable collection of Islamic art at the Wadsworth. Many of the works were not seen for over a century, until 2024 with the exhibit Divine Geometry. The organization was curated by Wadsworth curator Hamid Hemat, who formerly worked for the Turquoise Mountain Foundation and subsequently fled the Fall of Kabul (2021).

She is buried along with her husband and children in Hartford's historic Cedar Hill Cemetery.