Adams & Co. Records

The collection includes letters and documents (including 8 scrapbooks and 2 volumes of transcripts) chiefly related to the years following the failure of Adams & Co., especially as they affected Alfred A. Cohen, who was appointed first receiver of the company. Other subjects covered in the collection include Cohen's business and legal associations (1864-84) with the Central Pacific Railroad Company and the 1876 trial, Central Pacific Railroad Co. vs. Alfred A. Cohen. Significant persons represented in the collection include: Alfred A. Cohen (16 items + 126 in letter book), Frederick Cohen (5 pieces), Augustus G. Richardson (9 pieces), H. A. Whiting (6 pieces), and Isaiah Churchill Woods (15 pieces). There is also an affidavit by James King of William and some materials related to the firm of Hoge & Wilson (5 pieces).

It seems likely that Cohen (or the Cohen family) was once the possessor of these letters and papers; a few of them relate to his affairs before and after the period related to the Adams & Co. matters. Cohen's activities as broken for Adams & Co., as lessee of the North Point Dock Warehouses, and as receiver for the California Lumber Manufacturing Company are touched on in the few letters which antedate 1855.

In January and early February 1855, Cohen's brother Frederick Cohen was employed by Adams & Co. in making an inspection of their country offices. Letters of instruction to him from I.C. Woods and other members of the firm are included in this collection.

Most of the material falls within the years 1855-1863. There are letters to and from Cohen as receiver and assignee; legal papers relating chiefly to the suit of Adams vs. Haskell and Woods and Cohen, receiver, and to the suit of Adams & Co., per Naglee, receiver, vs. Cohen; and correspondence between Cohen and his lawyers.

The later papers (1864-1884) are few in number. They consist of family letters and of documents and scraps concerning Cohen's business and legal associations with the Central Pacific Railroad Co. There are two volumes containing a typewritten copy of the official reporter's transcript of the trial in the case of the Central Pacific Railroad Co. vs. Alfred A. Cohen (1876 July 18-31)

The collection includes eight scrapbooks, probably compiled by Cohen's son, William Gibbons Cohen, after 1876. The volumes contain typewritten copies of articles from the Daily Herald and other San Francisco newspapers for the years 1853-1856, as well as clippings, dating from 1876 through 1924. Though the articles cover a wide range of subjects, most of those for 1855-1856 deal with Adams & Co. Volume eight is limited to clippings, most relating to crime in San Francisco during the years 1876-1880.

Some notable items include: