Access
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Existence and Location of Copies
Acquisition Information
Corporate History
Biography of Louis Sloss
Biography of Lewis Gerstle
Scope and Content
Indexing Terms
Title: Alaska Commercial Company records
Date: 1868-1918
Collection Identifier: MS
28
Creator:
Alaska Commercial Company
Extent: 1 flat box (1 linear
foot)
Contributing Institution:
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105-4014
(415) 357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Physical Location: Collection is stored onsite.
Language of Materials: Collection materials are in
English.
Abstract: Two volumes of official minutes of monthly and
special Board of Trustees meetings and annual stockholders meetings, along with a
few related miscellaneous notes and papers. The volumes include information on
bylaws, contracts, inventories, dividends and assessments, and other company
business. Major stockholders and directors include Louis Sloss, Lewis Gerstle, and
Simon Greenewald.
Access
Publication Rights
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials
must be submitted in writing to the Director of Library and Archives, North Baker
Research Library, California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco,
CA 94105. Consent is given on behalf of the California Historical Society as the
owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from
the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner.
Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of
digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Alaska Commercial Company Records, MS 28, California
Historical Society.
Existence and Location of Copies
Collection also available on microfilm.
Acquisition Information
See repository.
Corporate History
Established in 1868 with the intention of obtaining exclusive rights for taking seal
furs from the Pribiloff Islands, the Alaska Commercial Company is credited with
helping to open up the Alaska Territory to settlers and to various commercial
enterprises immediately following the U.S. purchase of the territory from
Russia.
The founders of the Alaska Commercial Company were among the pioneering Jewish
families of San Francisco. Louis Sloss was the company's first president, and Lewis
Gerstle its vice-president. The original stockholders were Louis Sloss, Lewis
Gerstle, Simon Greenewald, Hayward M. Hutchinson, Albert Boscowitz, William Kohl,
August Wasermann Gustave Niebaum, and General John F. Miller.
The business of Hutchinson, Kohl, and Company had obtained equipment, stores, and
other property relating to the fur sealing business from the Prussian government
shortly before Alaska was purchased by the United States. The Alaska Commercial
Company (ACC) then purchased these assets from the Hutchinson firm in 1868 in order
to begin their business venture. ACC also became the sole and exclusive agent for
the Hutchinson firm to take seals from the Komandorski Islands in Siberia.
Hoping that negotiations for the lease would meet with greater success if conducted
by a company president with legal training and personal connections with President
Grant's administration, the officers and trustees resigned on January 21, 1870.
General John F. Miller (who later became a U.S. Senator) was elected the company's
new president and held this office for 12 years.
Amidst fierce competition for leasing rights, ACC was awarded an exclusive
twenty-year lease under certain restrictive conditions by the acting U.S. Treasurer
in 1870. The lease gave the company the rights to take 1,000,ema000 seals from the
Pribiloff Islands in the Bering Sea from 1870-1889. The seals from these islands
constituted about 90% of all fur-bearing seals, and had a superior grade of fur
which commanded a high market price. The way in which ACC successfully outmaneuvered
its competitors for the lucrative lease created animosity among some of the other
businessmen who had bid for the lease and was a source of problems for the company
in later years. During its 20-year lease, ACC paid the U.S. government
$5,925,736.49, compared to the purchase price of $7,200,000 paid by the U.S. for
Alaska during a time when the U.S. received little or nothing else for its
investment.
While the main business of the company from its inception was its lease with the U.S.
government for fur seals, large numbers of land furs were secured along the Aleutian
Islands, the Seward Peninsula, the Yukon Valley, Kusoquim Valley, and the district
around Bristol Bay, Kodiak and Cook's Inlet. Other skins included ermine, mink,
wolf, wolverine, marten, lynx, beaver, land otter, fox, bear, and sea otter. All
skins were shipped to San Francisco for counting by U.S. Treasury officials, then
shipped to London for auction by the firm of C.M. Lampson and Company.
ACC was hounded by accusations of fraud and corruption by its competitors, and in
1876 there was a Congressional investigation of the company's activities by the
House Ways and Means Committee. Although ACC was cleared of any wrongdoing, the
governor petitioned the U.S. not to renew their lease. Despite vindication by
federal hearings to review renewal of their lease, ACC was outbid in 1890 by the
North American Commercial Company, which purchased the company 's entire plant on
the Pribiloff Islands. That same year, the Russian government also failed to renew
the Hutchinson firm's lease.
By 1890, ACC had branched out into many other ventures in Alaska. They had built six
salmon canneries, each organized as separate corporations with their own staff and
fishing fleet. They also maintained an extensive chain of trading posts, located at
various points on the mainland coast, the Yukon River and its tributaries, the
Aleutian and Komandorski Islands in Siberia, and in the Yukon Territory in Canada.
The stores provided the natives, miners and prospectors with staple foodstuffs,
clothing, tools, and tobacco.
ACC chartered the Excelsior, the first steamer to leave San Francisco in 1897 after
the start of the Klondike stampede, and transported passengers to Alaska throughout
the gold rush years. The company built four steamboats to carry passengers to
Alaska, and during its peak years, the ACC fleet included five ocean steamers,
fourteen river steamers, seven trading schooners, several river barges and small
barges, and one St. Michael tugboat.
By 1901, severe competition among Yukon Valley businesses made profit impossible. ACC
merged with two rival trading firms, the International Mercantile Marine Company and
the Alaska Goldfields, Limited. With its new associates, ACC organized two
subsidiary corporations: The Northern Commercial Company, which took over almost all
of the mercantile activities of the group, and the Northern Navigation Company, to
handle transportation. In 1902, ACC sold to the Northern Commercial Company all of
its mercantile assets except sawmills and mining claims. At the same time, ACC sold
to the Northern Navigation Company all of its floating property except ocean
steamers, in addition to fuel, ship stores, supplies, and goodwill. ACC became
little more than a holding company during its last years.
Biography of Louis Sloss
Sloss was born July 1823 in the village of Untereisenheim, near Wurzburg, in Bavaria.
His mother died when he was four, and his father died when he was ten. Sloss was
compelled to strike out on his own with only a grammar school education. After
working as a clerk in a country store, Sloss decided to leave Bavaria for the
greater self-employment opportunities available in the United States.
Sloss arrived in the U.S. in 1845 and settled in Maxwell, Kentucky. Attracted by
reports from the gold country, he crossed the plains on horseback in 1849. He
located in Sacramento and went into business with Simon Greenwald. They were joined
in their mercantile business in 1851 by Lewis Gerstle, and they became lifelong
partners. Their business sold groceries and provisions and later in San Francisco
they established a brokerage house which dealt in mining stocks. Later the firm
bought and sold California hides, furs, wool, deerskins, operated a tannery, and
acquired various shipping interests.
Sloss gained a reputation in Sacramento as a progressive merchant and civic leader.
He married Miss Sarah Greenbaum of Philadelphia in July 1855. She was the sister of
Hannah Greenbaum Gerstle. In 1860 the firm moved to San Francisco, where, in 1868,
the profitable Alaska Commercial Company was founded. Sloss served as the first
president of the Alaska Commercial Company from 1868-1870, and again from 1887-1892.
He also served as an active member of the company's board of trustees for many
years.
Sloss was said to have exhibited a fondness for politics, and although he never held
public office, he served as an elector on the National Republican ticket which
resulted in the election of President Grant. During his lifetime, Sloss was
associated with numerous public civic and charitable organizations. He served as
Treasurer of the University of California, and was a founder and president of the
Society of California Pioneers, a Trustee of the San Francisco Public Library, and a
member of Temple Emanu-El and other Jewish organizations.
His children were Mrs. E.R. Lilienthal, Leon, Louis, Joseph, and Judge Marcus C.
Sloss. His son Leon served as president of the Alaska Commercial Company from
1918-1920. Louis Sloss died in San Francisco June 4, 1902.
Biography of Lewis Gerstle
Gerstle was born December 17, 1824 in Ichenhausen, Germany. He came to the United
States at twenty-one and settled in Louisville, Kentucky, where he worked for his
brother. He was said to have quickly mastered the English language, although he had
received only a grammar school education in Germany.
In 1850 he married Miss Hannah Greenbaum of Philadelphia. The Greenbaum sisters
belonged to a well-established family represented by Dr. Elias Greenbaum, one of the
leaders of the reform movement. In 1850, Gerstle travelled to Sacramento via the
Isthmus of Panama, working as a cabin boy to pay for his passage. In Sacramento,
Gerstle operated a fruit stand before joining the partnership of Louis Sloss and
Simon Greenewald in 1851. Gerstle was a founder of the Alaska Commercial Company and
served on the Board of Trustees for a great number of years. He also served as
President of the company from 1881-1887.
Gerstle also was associated with a number of other business activities. He was a
director of the Union Trust Company, the Nevada National Bank and the
California-Hawaiian Sugar Company, an investor in the Pioneer Woolen Mills and the
San Joaquin Valley Railroad, and a stockholder in numerous other California
corporations.
Gerstle was active in charity work, including the affairs of the Orphans' and Old
Peoples' Home (probably the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum). He was one of the
earliest members of Temple Emanu-El and a member of the Vigilance Committee.
His children were Sophia Lilienthal, Clara, Bertha Haas, Mark L., William, Alice, and
Bella Flieshacker. His son William served as president of the Alaska Commercial
Company from 1908-1918, and again from 1920-1940. Lewis Gerstle died on November 19,
1902. In 1911, ACC sold its Kodiak district properties to Wilbur J. Erskine, an old
employee, and in 1914 the assets of the Northern Navigation Company were sold to the
American Yukon Navigation Company. The Northern Commercial Company was sold in 1922
to a group of former employees, headed by Volney Richmond. In 1940, the last
remaining assets of ACC were purchased by the same group. According to Mack Gerstle,
the minutes of the company's meetings from 1919-1940 were destroyed, and there is no
record of dividends declared during these years. In 1940, after 72 years of
continuous operation, the Alaska Commercial Company ended.
Scope and Content
The Alaska Commercial Company records contain two volumes of official minutes of
regular monthly and special Board of Trustees' meetings and annual stockholder
meetings, from October 19, 1868-October 19, 1918. There also is one folder of
miscellaneous handwritten notes and other papers relating to the meetings and ACC
business activities which are reflected in the volumes of the minutes.
Volume I consists of 264 handwritten pages, and dates from October 19, 1868 to
January 6, 1904. Volume II consists of 134 typed and handwritten pages, dating from
October 19, 1868 to January 19, 1870, and then from January 18, 1904 to October 9,
1918. Information contained in the two volumes includes ACC by-laws and amendments,
the names of stockholders and the number of shares owned by them, the names of ACC
officers and trustees, the inventory of the ACC's purchase of Hutchinson, Kohl and
Company's Alaskan assets, plans to obtain sealing leases from the U.S. and Russian
governments, stock dividends declared and assessments made on stockholders, plans to
build, purchase and sell ships, the number and kinds of skins sold for ACC by
Lampson and Company, inventories of ACC's assets at various dates, plans to increase
stores and ships during the Alaskan gold rush, sales of ACC property, stores and
other assets, copies of some legal documents and newspaper clippings of
stockholders' meeting announcements.
The minutes do not include discussion of the various decisions reached by the ACC
trustees and stockholders during their meetings. Essentially the minutes record only
official motions which were agreed upon, formal resignations and appointments of
officers and trustees, a few reports and letters read into the minutes, and the
like.
Indexing Terms
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog:
Northern Commercial Company.
Northern Navigation Company.
Alaska Commercial Company--Records and
correspondence.
Fur trade--Alaska.
Minutes.