Of his brothers and sisters the following are living: Mrs. Katherine Van Asselt and Mr. Eli B. Maple, of this city; Mrs. Jane Cavanaugh, of California; Mrs. Elvira Jones and Mrs. Ruth Smith, of Kent, and Aaron Maple, who now lives on the old Maple homestead in Iowa. CHARLES PROSCH AND THOMAS PROSCH. "The summer in which the gold excitement broke out in the Colville country, in 1855," said Thomas Prosch, "several members of a party of gold hunters from Seattle were massacred by the Indians in the Yakima Valley while on their way to the gold fields. The party went through Snoqualmie Pass in crossing the mountains. The territorial legislature sent word to Washington and the government undertook to punish the guilty tribes by a detachment of troops under Maj. Haller. This was defeated and war followed for several years. It was most violent in King county in 1855 and 1856, and in Eastern Washington in 1857 and 1858. The principal incidents in the West were the massacre of the whites in 1855 and the attack upon Seattle the following year. In 1857 Col. Steptoe sustained a memorable defeat on the Eastern side of the mountains, and the hostilities were terminated by the complete annihilation of the Indian forces in the same locality the following year by Col. Wright. He killed 1,000 horses and hanged many of the Indians besides the frightful carnage of the battlefield." Mr. Prosch and his father, Charles Prosch, with several other members of his family, arrived in the state and in Seattle between the years 1849 and 1857. Gen. M. M. Carver, the founder of Tacoma, who was Mrs. Thomas Prosch's father, came to the territory in 1843 with Dr. Whitman, who was massacred, with Applegate and Nesmith. Time and strength would fail me did I attempt to obtain and record accounts of many well known pioneers; I must leave them to other more capable writers. However, I will briefly mention some who were prominent during my childhood. The Hortons, Dexter Horton and Mrs. Horton, the latter a stout, rosy-cheeked matron whose house and garden, particularly the dahlias growing in the yard, elicited my childish admiration. I remember how certain little pioneer girls were made happy by a visit from her, at which time she fitted them with her own hands some pretty grey merino dresses trimmed with narrow black velvet ribbon. Also how one of them was impressed by the sorrow she could not conceal, the tears ran down her cheeks as she spoke of a child she had lost. One family have never forgotten the Santa Claus visit to their cottage home, the same being impersonated by Dexter Horton, who departed after leaving some substantial tokens of his good will. The pioneer ministers of the Gospel were among the most fearless of foundation builders. Reverends Wm. Close, Alderson, Franklin, Doane, Bagley, Whitworth, Belknap, Greer, Mann, Atwood, Hyland, Prefontaine, and others; of Rev. C. Alderson, who often visited my father and mother, Hon. Allen Weir has this to say: