1884 Board of Indian Commissioners
"Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners," pp. 681-747. In U.S. House. 48th Congress, 2d Session. Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1884 (H.Ex.Doc.1, Pt. 5, Vol. 2). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1885. (Serial Set 2287)

From: Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, Missions Among the Indians, pp. 709-713.

Some changes in the list of teachers will appear in connection with their stations respectively. In the list of missionaries two names were removed by death, the Rev. Oliver P. Stark, and Mrs. G. L. Deffenbaugh. . . Just at the end of the year the sad news was received of the death of Mrs. Deffenbaugh, wife of the Rev. G. L. Deffenbaugh, at Lapwai, April 20, after a short illness, greatly lamented. . . .

The Nez Percé Mission reports a year of steady and encouraging work. The staff of laborers is unchanged; but two of the native licentiate preachers have been ordained by the presbytery—Messrs. Wheeler and Whitman—as stated above. The church at Deep Creek, reported last year as transferred by friendly arrangement to another denomination, is restored by consent to its place under the care of the mission. The oversight of stations so far distant from each other is a charge that tasks the vigor even of the vigorous superintendent, but he has been greatly assisted by his native fellow-laborers. The work of the ladies has been steadily maintained. The general condition of the native Christian communities may be regarded as not free from drawbacks, yet as progressive and hopeful. The proposed return of Chief Joseph’s band of Nez Percés from the Indian Territory to their former abode, not on but near the Nez Percé Reserve, still occupies attention. In the judgment of some of their best friends it would be expedient for them to settle in some other neighborhood, rather than on the Nez Percé Reserve. . . . [T]he lady missionary who has been longest on the reserve fully concurs. The Nez Percés, both in Idaho Territory and in the Indian Territory, have no warmer friends than these; and few, if any, are so well acquainted with all that pertains to their welfare. . . .