Samuel Colt left $15 million, and the "nephew" in his will was the son of his brother, who died in his cell on his execution day

Samuel Colt's revolver factory in Hartford made him one of the richest men in America. In 1841 his brother John C. Colt killed the printer Samuel Adams. John was convicted and sentenced to hang on 18 November 1842. Before the execution he married Caroline Henshaw, who had borne his son. He was found dead in his cell with a knife in his heart. Samuel sent Caroline and the boy to Germany, paid for the boy's schooling, and called him his "nephew". Local gossip, which Colt's own relatives believed, held that the boy, Samuel Caldwell Colt, was Samuel's son. A 1953 biography says Samuel had married Caroline in Scotland in 1838 and that in probate the son produced the marriage license^†. Samuel Colt died on 10 January 1862, aged 47. His estate was valued at $15 million. He left it to his widow, Elizabeth, and their three-year-old son, Caldwell, with a bequest to Samuel Caldwell Colt. Elizabeth's other four children died in infancy, the last stillborn that July. She ran the company from behind the scenes and rebuilt the armory after the 1864 fire. Caldwell died in Punta Gorda, Florida, in January 1894. That year Elizabeth moved her husband's body from the grounds of their house, Armsmear, to Cedar Hill Cemetery. She sold her interest in the company in 1901^† and died in 1905.