Colt family.

Residents of Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, including Paterson residents John Colt (1786-1883) and his wife Eliza Pintard (Boudinot) Colt (1792-1858); their fathers Peter Colt (1744-1824) and Newark resident Elisha Boudinot (1749-1819); two of the couple's children, daughter Julia Marian Colt (b. 1817), wife of paper manufacturer Henry V. Butler (b. 1811), and son E. Boudinot Colt (1823-1900), a Newark resident; and the latter's son Boudinot Colt, a resident of New York City. Note: Peter Colt was a Connecticut resident until 1793 when he moved to Paterson to superintend the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (until its initial failure in 1796); from 1797 he lived in New York State at Rome (including a number of years as a farmer) before returning to New Jersey in 1810 where he resided first in Newark and then, from 1813, in Paterson. Like Peter Colt, family members Elisha Boudinot (a lawyer and judge), John Colt (a cotton manufacturer) and E. Boudinot Colt (also a cotton manufacturer) each served as an officer of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures.

Papers of various family members.

Elisha Boudinot is represented primarily by letters received from Richard Stockton (1 letter: 1787) and Peter Colt (4 letters: 1809-1810) and by two letters, 1801 and 1809, which he wrote to his daughter Julia.

The 28 items of Peter Colt's papers consist of letters received, 1777-1810; a letterbook, March 20, 1795-July 29, 1799, including copies of letters sent to George Clinton (2 letters: 1798-1799), J[eremiah] Wadsworth (3 letters: 1798-1799) and to Colt's son Roswell Colt (3 letters: 1799); three essays (written ca. 1792 for a Hartford newspaper?) urging development of American industry; three autobiographies, 1821-1823; two accounts of the Colt family, 1818 and undated; genealogical notes on the Lyman family prepared by Colt's wife (Sarah Colt, nee Lyman); and other papers. Included among Peter Colt's correspondence are a letter, 1777, from the Representatives of the State of New York in Convention (concerning the disposition of a ship's cargo captured by a privateer) and a letter, 1781, received from Benjamin Tallmadge concerning Revolutionary War news, including the whereabouts of Cornwallis' army. Colt's autobiographies include an account of his activities during the American Revolution, when he served as a deputy Commissary General and was otherwise involved in supplying the war effort, and, more briefly, of the periods when he served successively as state treasurer of Connecticut and as superintendant of the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures.

Papers of John Colt include letters received, 1809-1873, chiefly from family members; passports, 1809 and 1812; deeds, 1812 and 1828-1830; undated notes on the descendants of Peter Colt (in part written by other family members); and other papers. Among Colt's correspondents are R.S. Field (1 letter: 1851) and Theodore Frelinghuysen (2 letters: 1851 and 1855).

Thirteen items comprise the papers of Eliza P. Colt: a letterbook, January 6-February 24, 1810, and letters received, 1815-1857, from her children and other relatives.

Julia M. (Colt) Butler is represented by two letters, 1847, which she received from her sister and from "H.V.B." (evidently her husband) while both individuals were traveling in Scotland.

E. Boudinot Colt and his son Boudinot Colt are represented by 16 items consisting in part of estate papers (including a will) for Mary T. Bainbridge of Paterson (E. Boudinot Colt, executor) and genealogical correspondence.