Adams and Company provided shippers with a complete shipping solution, picking up goods at the shipper's location, carrying them to the railroad terminal, and then delivering them from the distant railroad terminal to the recipient's door.

[6] A produce merchant ruined by the Panic of 1837, in 1839, Adams began carrying letters, small packages and valuables for patrons between Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts.

On May 4, 1840, he established his first express freight route between Boston and New York under the name Adams and Company.

[7] The company established offices in Boston and New York, and soon added express routes to Baltimore, Maryland, Norwich, Connecticut, Worcester, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cincinnati, Ohio, Louisville, Kentucky, and St. Louis, Missouri.

[7][8] Adams and Company started out by hauling mail for the nascent postal service, until that business was suspended by the US Government in 1845; in that year the transportation of mail was transferred to solely government-owned entities.