The Issachar Cozzens Portfolio Print Collection spans the period from 1860 to ca. 1865 and primarily contains early prints related to natural history and New York topics. Cozzens assembled a scrapbook with engravings, certificates, caricatures, lithographs, drawings, and maps of the New York area, natural history specimens, buildings, portraits, and landmarks. Many of the prints in the scrapbook bear the initials "SLM," as Samuel L. Mitchill owned many of these prints before Cozzens acquired them. Cozzens pasted most of the documents onto a pink paper in the scrapbook and added his handwritten notes.

The collection includes early lithography by Arthur J. Stansbury, some of the first known lithographs to have been produced in New York City. Other lithographs are by Imbert and included engravings are by Alexander Anderson, Peter Maverick, and Francis Davignon. An early engraving by Alexander Anderson, a "Wheel of Fortune," is the only known impression of this print. Many natural history pages include drawings of fish, several made by Cozzens himself. The collection includes a copy of the Declaration of Independence and several learning charts, including a toxicological table, illustrations of the eye, and an outline of the Linnean system of classification. Portraits and geographical prints round out the collection.

After its acquisition by the New-York Historical Society, Cozzens' scrapbook was disbound and its components were distributed among several different departments. The following container list includes prints held by the Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections. A transcription of Cozzens' original list of prints (the original is held by the Society's Manuscript Department), with call numbers for those items now located in the General Library Collections, can be consulted in the repository.

For more in-depth information about the collection, its provenance, and some of its prints, see the article "Portfolio of a Curious Mind: The Issachar Cozzens Collection" by Jenny Gotwals in the New-York Journal of American History, Volume 65, Number 4, Fall 2004, pages 48-57.