solid blows.
Adams finally stopped struggling but Colt could not stop himself, taken up now with an admitted hysteria. He continued the barrage until a knock on the door caused him to gain hold of himself.
“Hello?”
“Yes, Mr. Colt? You are wanted down on the receiving platform.”
When he heard the knock on the door and his name called, Colt confessed, he was instantly startled, then taken aback, suddenly coming to his true senses in regard to the magnitude of his deed. He stole to the door, fully conscious of turning the key so as to lock it.
He sat for a few moments, sick from what he had done and hoping no one had heard the noise of the fearful beating, sitting quietly, waiting whatever his fate may be.
“There was vast amounts of blood on the floor,” he recalled.
Afraid it would begin seeping down into the apothecary store below, he said, he swabbed the floor thoroughly with a towel he found hanging on a doorknob and wrung out the blood into a bucket of water that stood in the room.
“The pail was, I should think, at that time about one-third full of water, and the blood filled at least another third surely,” he wrote in his confession.
About this time a second knock fell on the door, to which Colt chose to pay no attention.
“Wondering what was best to do, I remained until dusk on a seat near the window in the office,” he remembered, “gazing on the body, forlorn, a silent space of time, I admit, with horrid reflection.”
11
Aftermath to Murder
T he idea for the Colt revolving handgun came to John Colt’s brother, Samuel Colt, while the latter sailed on board a transoceanic liner to England. Traveling in the company of middle-born brother James, second of the three Colt brothers, Sam, the eldest, had positioned himself on the bridge, where he became entranced with the spinning of the ship’s spoked wheel. He spent the rest of the voyage carving a wooden prototype of a gun barrel capable of a similar spinning action. Upon docking at Leeds, the brothers booked immediate return passage, steaming directly back across the Atlantic to New York and their fortune.
According to John’s written confession, later published in its entirety in a supplement edition of Bennett’s Herald , on the night of the Samuel Adams murder, his brother was booked at the City Hotel on Chatham Street near the southern edge of City Hall Park, but when he stole out of his Chambers Street office and hurried south across the park to see him, Sam was engaged in negotiations in the hotel’s reading room with two gentlemen, one a Brit, the other a Russian, and only a few words passed between the brothers.
“I sat patiently,” John wrote, “trying to wedge a word in edgewise inan attempt to communicate my dire peril to my sibling, but to no avail. Serious money was being discussed and the terms were complicated. My brother has never gotten along well with the British, and the Russians are a total enigma to him,” John explained.
“Exasperated by my brother’s indifference, I finally stood, made a noise in my throat, and exited the hotel, scarcely noticed. I then retired to nearby City Hall Park, where I walked a bit. A turn I enjoyed wholehearted, serving to clear my head, heart, and lungs. My thoughts, I confess, kept coming back to the horrors of the excitement that had only recently transpired, the possible trial, the public censure, the false and foul reports that would inevitably be raised.
“I knew full well there would be those who would wish to take advantage of the nature of my situation, making the deed appear worse than it really was for the sake of a paltry pittance.
“I knew I must somehow disengage myself from all circumstance. After wandering in the park for more than an hour, I settled on a course of action and returned to my room.
“A crate stood in the offices, and I succeeded in stuffing Adams inside, being careful to wrap the body in canvas in order to absorb the excessive amounts of blood
Adams finally stopped struggling but Colt could not stop himself, taken up now with an admitted hysteria. He continued the barrage until a knock on the door caused him to gain hold of himself.
“Hello?”
“Yes, Mr. Colt? You are wanted down on the receiving platform.”
When he heard the knock on the door and his name called, Colt confessed, he was instantly startled, then taken aback, suddenly coming to his true senses in regard to the magnitude of his deed. He stole to the door, fully conscious of turning the key so as to lock it.
He sat for a few moments, sick from what he had done and hoping no one had heard the noise of the fearful beating, sitting quietly, waiting whatever his fate may be.
“There was vast amounts of blood on the floor,” he recalled.
Afraid it would begin seeping down into the apothecary store below, he said, he swabbed the floor thoroughly with a towel he found hanging on a doorknob and wrung out the blood into a bucket of water that stood in the room.
“The pail was, I should think, at that time about one-third full of water, and the blood filled at least another third surely,” he wrote in his confession.
About this time a second knock fell on the door, to which Colt chose to pay no attention.
“Wondering what was best to do, I remained until dusk on a seat near the window in the office,” he remembered, “gazing on the body, forlorn, a silent space of time, I admit, with horrid reflection.”
11
Aftermath to Murder
T he idea for the Colt revolving handgun came to John Colt’s brother, Samuel Colt, while the latter sailed on board a transoceanic liner to England. Traveling in the company of middle-born brother James, second of the three Colt brothers, Sam, the eldest, had positioned himself on the bridge, where he became entranced with the spinning of the ship’s spoked wheel. He spent the rest of the voyage carving a wooden prototype of a gun barrel capable of a similar spinning action. Upon docking at Leeds, the brothers booked immediate return passage, steaming directly back across the Atlantic to New York and their fortune.
According to John’s written confession, later published in its entirety in a supplement edition of Bennett’s Herald , on the night of the Samuel Adams murder, his brother was booked at the City Hotel on Chatham Street near the southern edge of City Hall Park, but when he stole out of his Chambers Street office and hurried south across the park to see him, Sam was engaged in negotiations in the hotel’s reading room with two gentlemen, one a Brit, the other a Russian, and only a few words passed between the brothers.
“I sat patiently,” John wrote, “trying to wedge a word in edgewise inan attempt to communicate my dire peril to my sibling, but to no avail. Serious money was being discussed and the terms were complicated. My brother has never gotten along well with the British, and the Russians are a total enigma to him,” John explained.
“Exasperated by my brother’s indifference, I finally stood, made a noise in my throat, and exited the hotel, scarcely noticed. I then retired to nearby City Hall Park, where I walked a bit. A turn I enjoyed wholehearted, serving to clear my head, heart, and lungs. My thoughts, I confess, kept coming back to the horrors of the excitement that had only recently transpired, the possible trial, the public censure, the false and foul reports that would inevitably be raised.
“I knew full well there would be those who would wish to take advantage of the nature of my situation, making the deed appear worse than it really was for the sake of a paltry pittance.
“I knew I must somehow disengage myself from all circumstance. After wandering in the park for more than an hour, I settled on a course of action and returned to my room.
“A crate stood in the offices, and I succeeded in stuffing Adams inside, being careful to wrap the body in canvas in order to absorb the excessive amounts of blood
Similar Books
