914 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



SEriEMBER 1. 1921 



Chairman of the United States Rubber Co. 



COLONEL Samuel Pomeroy Colt, chairman of the board of 

 directors and of the executive committee of the United 

 States Rubber Co., New York, N. V., died August 13 at 

 his summer home. "Linden Place," Bristol, Rhode Island, aged 

 69. his death following a severe paralytic shock which he suffered 

 eight days previously. 



Lawyer, statesman, financier and manufacturer. Colonel Colt 

 came of two of the most distinguished families of Connecticut and 

 Rhode Island, and his own remarkable career upheld their best 

 traditions. Not only was he socially promineiU in New England. 

 one of the captains of .\nicrican in- 

 dustry and the outstanding figure of the 

 rubber business, but he had been active 

 in Rhode Island politics. 



Rom in Paterson, New Jersey, on 

 January 10. 1852, he was the son of 

 Christopher and Theodora De Wolf 

 Colt, and the nephew and namesake of 

 Samuel Colt, the inventor of Coll re- 

 volvers and founder of Colt's Patent 

 Fire Arms Manufacturing Co., Hart- 

 ford. Connecticut, the Colt family 

 being among the early settlers of the 

 latter city. 



On the maternal side, he was the 

 grandson of General George De Wolf 

 and the grand-nephew of James De 

 Wolf, who was United States Senator 

 from Rhode Island in 1821. The De 

 Wolfs were extensively engaged in the 

 East and West Indies trade and in 

 privateering during the early part of 

 the last century and amassed a fortune. 

 "Linden Place," a handsome old Colo- 

 nial mansion on a great estate at 

 Bristol, Rhode Island, erected in 1810 

 by General George De Wolf, was occupied as a summer home by 

 Colonel Colt. There was preserved the old coach in which his 

 great uncle. Senator James De Wolf, drove from Bristol to 

 Washington, District of Columbia. 



Another great-uncle. Henry Goodwin, of Newport, was Attorney 

 General of Rhode Island from 1787 to 1789. while Colonel Colt's 

 great-grandfather, William Bradford, was the sixth descendant 

 of Governor William Bradford, second governor of the Plymouth 

 Colony, Massachusetts, who came over in the "Mayflower." 



Most of Colonel Colt's boyhood was spent in Hartford, Con- 

 necticut, where he received his early education, followed by a 

 course in .\nthon's Grammar School. New York, N. Y. Owing 

 to his marked aptitude for business and taste for industrial pur- 

 suits he was sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 Boston, Massachusetts, from which he was graduated in 1873. 

 After a year of travel and study in Europe he entered Columbia 

 Law School, New York, N. Y., graduating with distinction in 1876 

 and being admitted to the New York bar. The following year he 

 began the practice of law in Providence, Rhode Island, where he 

 soon had a lucrative clientele, including several large rubber 

 companies. 



Even before he became a lawyer Colonel Colt was interested in 

 politics. In 1875 he was appointed aide-de-camp with the rank 

 of colonel on the staff of Governor Henry Lippitt, of Rhode 

 Island. In 1876 he was elected to a seat in the General Assembly, 

 which he occupied for three years. From 1879 to 1881 he served 

 as assistant attorney general and ably filled the office of attorney 



Colonel S.vmuel Pumeruv Colt 



general from 1882 to 1885. He was also a member of the commit- 

 tee of fifteen appointed to revise the Rhode Island Constitution. 

 In 1887 he founded and was elected president of the Industrial 

 Trust Co., of Providence, Rhode Island, now the second largest 

 trust company in New England. Owing to serious illness in 1908 

 he resigned the presidency but continued with the institution as 

 chairman of its board of directors. 



It was also in 1887 that Colonel Colt entered, as a legal adviser 

 and reorganizer, the field of rubber goods manufacture, of which 

 he was to liccome the leading executive. The National India 

 Rubber Co.. Bristol. Rhode Island, was 

 in bankruptcy, the factory had been . 

 closed and Colonel Colt was made pres- 

 ident and treasurer. With a l^rge 

 plant, a past record of unfortunate busi- 

 ness methods and owing its operatives 

 ten month's wages, the conjpany's fu- 

 ture was not bright, and it was fully 

 prophesied that the new president would 

 gain experience but lose money in the 

 \enture. He took hold, however, w'ith 

 characteristic vigor and resource. 

 While claiming no technical knowledge 

 of rubber goods manufacture, he was 

 in a financial sense fully at home in the 

 management. Plant operations were 

 begun again in April, 1888, and under 

 his direction the business was soon put 

 on a paying basis, regular dividends 

 were declared, the stock was largely 

 increased and a goodly surplus was ac- 

 cumulated. 



.Appreciating fully the opportunity 

 presented when the formation of the 

 United States Rubber Co. was pro- 

 jected. Colonel Colt was one of the 

 influence in favor of the plan of 

 the organization of that company 

 a member of the board 

 of directors and executive committee, and he was its first 

 legal adviser. Retaining the presidency of the National India 

 Rubber Co.. he later became head of various other constituent 

 concerns, notably the Woonsocket Rubber Co.. Goodyear's Metal- 

 lic Rubber Shoe Co., and was later chairman of the board of 

 directors of the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Co. and the United 

 States Tire Co. He was also a director in numerous subsidiaries 

 and important rubber companies affiliated with the United States 

 Rubber Co.. including the General Rubber Co., New York, N. Y. ; 

 Canadian Consolidated Rubber Co.. Limited. Montreal, Canada ; 

 Holland-American Plantations Co.. Netherlands-Langkat Rubber 

 Co., and United States Rubber Plantations. Inc. In all, he was 

 a director in some forty corporations, including banks, railroads, 

 steamship and manufacturing companies, most of them, however, 

 directly or indirectly connected with the rubber industry. 



In 1896 he was elected secretary of the United States Rubber 

 Co., which position he held until 1901. when he was elected presi- 

 dent, succeeding Frederick M. Shepard of East Orange, New 

 Jersey. From then until his death he was the guiding genius of 

 the world's greatest rubber company. He built up a strong or- 

 ganization over which he exercised remarkable harmonizing in- 

 fluence, but which he did not dominate to the extent of abrogating 

 to himself powers and prerogatives belonging to his officers. He 

 gave them wide scope in the management of their departments. 



first to throw his 

 consolidation. Since 

 m 1892 he has constantly been 



