You can also thank another cousin, Ely Whitney Jr. for developing the manufacturing processes that made the Colt revolver possible.. can't remember the exact process, but as the story goes, Ely was some sort of fabrication genius...

My Granparents were on good terms when he passed... Inez told me, a few months before she died, that the two of them had a good laugh moments before his death... Basically, after she had Shot him, he started bleeding from the mouth... He wasn't dead.. he bled out waiting for an ambulance. Anyway, upon seeing the blood from his mouth, Inez became angry as she thought she had just shot him in the mouth, ruining a thousand dollars in recent dental work......