Archive for March, 2010

Within five years, Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt’s husband and all four of her young children died. She also watched as the huge Colt armory, her husband’s pride and joy, burned to the ground. How would you have reacted?

Elizabeth could have hidden behind the wealth and walls built by her internationally famous, $200 million wealthy, highly controversial husband, Sam Colt. She didn’t hide. Living the late 19^th century’s Victorian era, she could have submitted to the male-dominant/“women are mere chattel” culture and allowed men to rule her life. Not this woman.

Instead, Elizabeth Colt became the most prominent civic leader, art collector and philanthropist in the history of Hartford, Connecticut.

She ran a major company, founded many civic and social organizations and gave away her millions and her estate to help others. Women today are still benefiting from Elizabeth’s generosity.

• As first President of the Hartford Soldiers Aid Society, she raised $1 million in a two week period (the equivalent of $43 million today)
• She helped found and preside over four major Hartford institutions including the Union for Home Work
• Elizabeth organized the first Suffragette convention in Connecticut in 1869

A Strong Woman In A Man’s World

After less than six years of marriage, Elizabeth’s husband, the inventor and industrialist, Sam Colt died leaving her as the sole owner of the Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, the largest armory in the world. She suffered through the deaths of all five of her children, four of them dying before the age of five and within a few years of her husband’s death. Two years after Sam’s death, in 1864, the armory burst into flames and burned to the ground. The $30+ million of damage seems to have been sabotage by Confederate sympathizers. Elizabeth chose to rebuild. She made the factory fireproof and added another story.

For more than 40 years, Elizabeth was the company’s driving force and final decision maker. Her company was one of the most sophisticated manufacturers of firearms in the world.

Gives Away Art; 100-Acre Park; Her Mansion

Elizabeth built the Church of the Good Shepherd in 1868 to honor her husband and as a place where owners, managers and laborers would worship together. The grand ecclesiastical church, if built today, would cost $7 million.

In her will Elizabeth Colt bequeathed 1,000 pieces of art to the Wadsworth Atheneum. Her collection was one of New England’s finest private art collections. She also gave that museum $50,000 to build a new wing, the first American municipal museum wing bearing the name of a woman patron.

Elizabeth gave the grounds of her estate to Hartford. Today it’s a 100-acre public park. Her home, Armsmear, still functions according to her will: a home for female dependents of Episcopal clergy and other qualified gentlewomen.

Upon Elizabeth’s death in 1905, the state’s leading newspaper ran a full page obituary on page one – the first time any woman was so honored.

Louise Arbor is best known as a chief prosecutor for tribunals into genocide in Rwanda and human rights abuses in Yugoslavia.   Her reputation is one of forthrightness and courage and is applauded world wide for her tenacity in these difficult situations.  She left her position as Supreme Court justice in the Canadian Court to become the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Louise takes great pride in Canada’s Criminal Justice system.  Under her leadership, Canada has taken a leading role in the creation of the International Criminal Court  This body, she believes, can play a leading role in transforming the concept of peacekeeping.  The law can be seen as a preferred system for maintaining and restoring peace.  “Military interventions are usually exercised under the quise of keeping the people” she goes on to say relationships should always be governed by law and when human rights are violated, the offenders must be held accountable.

To this end she has been called upon to seek justice in the aftermath of some of the most extensive human atrocities of our time.  It is through her efforts that justice was realized.

On the night of April 26, 1777,  at age 16,  Sybil Lundington and her family received word that British troops had begun burning Danbury, CT which was only 25 miles away. Her father’s troops were scattered over a large area around the house, and Sybil convinced her father to let her ride to warn them.  Her 40-mile ride was twice as long as Revere’s but unfortunately, did not rally troops fast enough to save Danbury.  However, the troops were able to drive General  William Tryon and the rest of his British troops to Long Island Sound.

During the Bicentennial, Sybil Ludington was celebrated in a commemorative stamp as a “Contributor to the Cause”. Unfortunately, the stamp never said what she did!   By the way—look at the price on the stamp!  How times have changed. Today someone might become a hero if they tweet  fast enough about danger!