Colt, Samuel Pomeroy, 1852-1921

Samuel Pomeroy Colt was born in Patterson, New Jersey on January 10, 1852. He was the youngest of six children of Christopher and Theodora Goujand DeWolf Colt and the nephew of Samuel Colt, inventor of the Colt revolver. His father was a dry goods merchant in New York City and Connecticut, his mother a descendant of the DeWolf mercantile family of Bristol, Rhode Island. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1870 to 1873, and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1876. He was admitted to the New York bar in that same year and to the Rhode Island bar in 1877. In 1875, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Rhode Island Governor Henry Lippitt with the honorary rank of "colonel," a title by which he was addressed for the remainder of his life. He served on the Governor's staff until 1877. A year earlier, while still on Lippitt's staff, he was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives from Bristol. His primary interests while in the Legislature were in the areas of regulating child labor and promoting the right of women to hold and inherit property. Colt left the Legislature in 1879 to accept an appointment as an Assistant Attorney General under Rhode Island Attorney General Willard Sayles. Upon Sayles retirement in 1882, Colt ran for and was elected to the first of four, one year terms as Rhode Island's Attorney General. During his seven year tenure in the Attorney General's Office, he vigorously prosecuted liquor law violations and had a strong interest in murder cases, often leading the prosecution of these cases personally. In contrast, his private legal practice, which he continued to pursue while serving in the Legislature and the Attorney General's Office, focused on probate and estate work. He served as an executor for the estates of Cornelius J. Vanderbilt, the son of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Ambrose Burnside, former Rhode Island governor and Civil War general.

Colt's active public political career waned after he was denied election for a 10th term as Attorney General in 1886.In 1875, at the age of twenty-three, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Rhode Island Governor Henry Lippitt with the honorary rank of "colonel," a title by which he was addressed for the remainder of his life. He served on the Governor's staff until 1877. A year earlier, while still on Lippitt's staff, he was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives from Bristol. His primary interests while in the Legislature were in the areas of regulating child labor and promoting the right of women to hold and inherit property.Colt left the Legislature in 1879 to accept an appointment as an Assistant Attorney General under longtime Rhode Island Attorney General Willard Sayles. Upon Sayles retirement in 1882, Colt ran for and was elected to the first of four, one year terms as Rhode Island's Attorney General. During his seven year tenure in the Attorney General's Office, he vigorously prosecuted liquor law violations and had a strong interest in murder cases, often leading the prosecution of these cases personally. In contrast, his private legal practice, which he continued to pursue while serving in the Legislature and the Attorney General's Office, focused on probate and estate work. He served as an executor for the estates of Cornelius J. Vanderbilt, the son of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Ambrose Burnside, former Rhode Island governor and Civil War general.Colt's active public political career waned after he was denied election for a 10th term as Attorney General in 1886. He did stage an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1903 and made a brief and abortive run for the U.S. Senate in 1907. These campaigns apparently were mounted more out of a sense of obligation to the Republican Party than out of any great desire to reenter elective politics. Both before and after these debates, however, Colt remained a behind-the-scenes power and major financial contributor to the Republican Party in Rhode Island. Colt's active public political career waned after he was denied election for a 10th term as Attorney General in 1886.

...