Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 1).djvu/736

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694
COLQUITT
COLT

tinguishing himself so much that at the death of Aillavillu he was given the command of both tribes. From 1551 till 1558 he directed many at- tacks upon the invaders under Valdivia, and, hav- ing united his troops with those of Caupoliean, fought the famous battle of Tucapel, 2 Dec, 1553, in which Valdivia was defeated. The victory of the Indians was due to the plan of Colocolo, who divided his forces into thirteen bodies, to make them fight in turn, in order to have always fresh troops during the encounter. On the following day another battle was fought, Colocolo being at the head of his division, and the Spaniards were again routed. Accompanied by Lautor, he re- sisted in ills intrenchments the attack of Villa- gran's army, 23 April, 1554. The Spanish cliief was wounded, and retreated to Concepcion, a city that, later in 1554, was captured and burned by Colo- colo. In 1555 he was besieged in the city of Val- divia by Villagran, and evacuated the place after a long resistance. At the end of the same year he fought a battle with Villagnin at Biobio, but was again defeated. Two years later he commanded a division of Caupolican's army, had an encounter with Garcia de Mendoza at Monte Pinto, attacked with great fury his intrenchments three times, and was repelled each time by the Spaniards, los- ing 2,000 men. In November, 1557, he was de- feated once more at the Arauco valley, and, Cau- poliean having been taken prisoner, he succeeded him as chief of the Araucanian army. He kept up the war until 1559, when, being successful in sev- eral battles, he asked for peace, and signed the first treaty between the Spaniards and the Arauca- nians. Again, in October, 1561, he raised a large army against the conquerors, and lost his life in the terrible battle of Lomaco. Colocolo was not only celebrated for his great courage, but also con- sidered the wisest cacique of his time.


COLQUITT, Walter Tarver, b. in Halifax county, Va., 27 Dec, 1799; d. in Macon, Ga., 7 May, 1855. He removed with his parents to Geor- gia, entered Princeton college, but was not gradu- ated, studied law in ]\Iille(lgeville, Ga., and was ad- mitted to the bar in 1820. He began practice at Sparta, and afterward removed to Cowpens. At the age of twenty-one he was elected by the legis- lature a brigadier-general of militia. He became prominent in 1826 by contesting the district as the Troup candidate for congress against Lumjikin, the Clark candidate, who was elected by thirty- two majority. The same year he was elected judge of the Chattahoochee circuit, and was re-elected in 1829. In 1834 and 1837 he was a state senator. In 1838 he was elected to congress as a state- rights whig, and took his seat on 2 Dec, 1839, but, having left the party with two colleagues after the nomination of Harrison for president, he resigned on 21 July, 1840. He was again elected to con- gress as a Van Buren democrat, serving frona 1 ^ Feb., 1842, till 3 March, 1843. He was then elected to the U. S. senate, and served from 4 Dec, 1843, till he resigned in 1848. He supported the Polk administration in the controversy relative to Ore- gon, and throughout the Mexican war was a promi- nent opponent of the Wilmot proviso. He was one of the most earnest speakers in the Nashville convention in 1850 in defence of the rights of the south. He had been licensed as a Methodist preacher in 1827, and, during the turmoil of a most exciting political career, was in the habit of officiating at the Methodist churches. Pie was one of the most successful lawyers in the state, and in criminal practice had no rival.— His son, Alfred Holt, statesman, b. in Walton county, Ga., 20 April. 1824 ; d. in Washington. D. C, 26 March, 1894 ; was graduated at Princeton in 1844, studied law, served during the Mexican war as a staff officer, with the rank of major, and in 1852 was elected to congress as a democrat, and served one term. In 1859 he was a member of the legislature, and in 1860 a presidential elector on the Breckinridge ticket. He was a member of the secession conven- tion of Georgia, entered the Confederate army as captain, was chosen colonel of the 6th Georgia in- fantry, promoted a brigadier-general, and, after serving some time in that grade, was commissioned a major-general. In 1876 he was elected governor of Georgia for four years, and after the expiration of his term re-elected for two years under the new constitution. In 1882 he was elected U. S. senator, and was re-elected for the term expiring in 1895.


COLT, Le Baron Bradford, jurist, b. in Ded- ham, Mass., 25 June, 1846. He was graduated at Yale in 1868, and at Columbia law-school in 1870. He travelled in Europe in 1870-'l, was a member of the Rhode Island house of representatives in 1879-'81, and on 6 July, 1884, appointed U. S. cir- cuit judge for the first judicial circuit.


COLT, Samuel, inventor, b. in Hartford, Conn., 19 July, 1814; d. there, 10 Jan., 1862. His father, descended from an early settler of Hartford, was a merchant and afterward a manufacturer. At the age of ten he en- tered his father's factory, and re- mained there and at school till his fourteenth year, when he was sent to a boarding- school in Am- herst, Mass., but ran away, and in July,1827,shipped as a boy before the mast on an East India voy- age. After his return he was placed in his fa- ther's factory at Ware, Mass., in

the dyeing and

bleaching department, under the tuition of William T. Smith, a scientific and practical chemist, and as soon as he had become a dexterous manipulator he again left home to seek his fortune, and though but sev- enteen or eighteen years of age, with a meagre edu- cation, yet, under the assumed name of Dr. Coult, he traversed the Union and British America, lec- turing on chemistry, and, owing to his success as an exj)erimenter, drew full houses. The profit from these lectures, which was very considerable, during the two years that followed, was devoted to the prosecution of the great invention connected with his name. The first model of his pistol was made in wood in 1829, with the imperfect tools at his command, while he was a sailor-boy on board ship. The money acquired by his chemical lectures enabled him to manufacture other models, and in 1835, when only twenty-one years of age, he took out his first patent for revolving fire-arms. Patents having been issued in England, France, and the United States for the revolver, he induced New York capitalists to take an interest in it, and a company was formed at Paterson, N. J., in 1835, with a capital of .f 300,000, under the name of the Patent Arms Company. For a long time the offi-