Hi Pete,
In a strange way it is.
The 'Volcanic Repeating Arms Co., New Haven, Conn..' patented the design in 1854. As a pistol it wasn't a succes, but it was the design on which the Winchester repeating rifle was based. The Winchester was the basis on which Maxim designed his automatic machinegun, which in turn inspired Borchardt to design his pistol, which eventually led to the Luger pistol.
Here is a drawing of the pistol. I marked the toggle lock construction in yellow. You can see that the toggle is manipulated using the trigger/lever construction.
