But this involved us in a large indebtedness. In view of liquidating this liability, we engaged a large contract to supply timber and lumber to the Utah Northern Railroad, incurring a heavy expense in procuring a saw mill in Marsh Valley, Idaho, and moving there also our steam saw mill. We were employing one hundred men--everything moving along prosperously, when, suddenly, through influence of apostates, aided by a mobocratic judge, a raid was made upon our camps, fifty of our workmen were arrested and imprisoned, and our operations stopped. And, although the embargo on our business was withdrawn, and the men liberated by order of the President of the United States, through the influence of Jay Gould, it came too late; thus we were compelled to abandon this enterprise, sell our saw mill for one-half its value, and move back our steam mill, etc., the whole involving an expense and loss of over $6,000 (six thousand), besides the vexation in our disappointments in raising the money to pay our indebtedness. The following July, a tax of $10,200 (ten thousand two hundred) was levied on our scrip by O. J. Hollister, United States assessor and collector of internal revenue. Though illegal, unjust and highly absurd, the payment could not be avoided; therefore we borrowed the money and paid the assessment. Through these and other unfortunate occurrences, we became greatly embarrassed in our business. This embarrassment, as may be seen, is not the result of the natural pressure of the times, nor of the financial crisis which has broken up thousands of banking institutions and business firms throughout the world, neither that of mismanagement, nor any defect in our systems of operations; but, as before mentioned, it has been brought about through a succession of calamities unparalleled in the experience of any business firm in this or any other Territory. The following is a showing of our losses, including the assessment, all occurring in the space of about nine months: Crops destroyed by grasshoppers, - - $4,000 Crops destroyed by drought, - - - - - 3,000 Burning of woolen mills, - - - - - - 30,000 Losses in Idaho, - - - - - - - - - - 6,000 By assessment on scrip, - - - - - - -10,000 Total, - - - - - - - - - - - - - - $53,200 We were then compelled to raise, within eighteen months, $30,000 (thirty thousand) independent of the $45,000 (forty-five thousand) required during the same time to carry on our home industries.