THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE 73 



To meet these expenses assessments were levied on both 

 Calumet and Hecla, which Mr. Shaw, on his return, 

 managed to negotiate successfully. 1 In this he was 

 much assisted by Mr. John Simpkins, of New York, 

 who held a heavy interest in the mines and furnished 

 very large funds for the enterprise at the time of its 

 greatest financial depression. 



In July, Mrs. Agassiz with her two children, one a 

 very small boy and the other a baby barely a year old, 

 joined her husband at Calumet. It was a rough primi- 

 tive community with little to offer in the way of com- 

 fort beyond the bare necessities of life. The " hotel " 

 was scarcely more than a log cabin on the edge of a 

 primeval forest rising directly behind it. The cracks in 

 the walls let in such a draft that the baby usually had 

 to be kept in his crib ; and whenever Mrs. Agassiz went 

 out for a walk with her little boy she wore a revolver 

 strapped to her waist. 



In August Agassiz writes : — 



" I have no time for any writing just now. I am driven 

 to death starting mill at Lake and no place to put men 

 on account of want of shelter. Shall get straightened 

 out in a few days and will have a good man there to 

 look after things. Railroad progressing and I feel very 

 hopeful about it, though some days it seems as if all 

 went awry. I have to be much of time trotting between 

 Torch Lake and mine along railroad, which is not con- 

 ducive to pleasant feeling in evening, and lately I have 

 been pretty well used up, but am putting things through, 

 and will give you account of progress of work at end of 

 week." 



1 Mrs. Agassiz's brother, H. S. Russell, carried Agassiz's assessments. 



