1891 Board of Indian Commissioners
"Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs," pp. 3-1097. In U.S. House. 52d Congress, 1st Session. Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1891 (H.Ex.Doc.1, Pt. 5, Vol.2). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1892. (Serial Set 2934)

From: Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board, Missions Among the Indians, pp. 1136-1140.

. . . NEZ PERCÉ MISSION.

The only missionaries directly employed by the board in the Nez Percé mission are Miss Sue L. McBeth, residing at Mount Idaho, and Miss Kate McBeth, at Lapwai, though Rev. G. L. Deffenbaugh, of Cœur d'Alene City, formerly a missionary of the board, continues to render important service in connection with the Indian work, and especially as acting treasurer of the mission.

Of the native ministers employed, three, namely, Rev. Messrs. Wheeler, Lindsley, and Pond, are installed pastors. Rev. Messrs. Lawyer, Whitman, Williams, and Hayes are stated supplies. Rev. Messrs. Hines, Parsons, and Montieth are without charge.

Two stations of the Nez Percé mission, Lapwai and Kamiah, were established before the massacre of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and others in 1847, and shared the disturbance which that sad event caused in the mission work among the Nez Percés. Lapwai was established in 1836, and Kamiah in 1838. Something had been done, also, at Wellpinit in 1837. The other stations—North Fork, Meadow Creek, Umatilla, and Spokane River —have been founded since 1880.

The work of Miss Sue L. McBeth is directed, as heretofore, to the education of young men for the ministry and for the eldership in the churches. Each department is important, as the churches could not prosper without the support of a native eldership. Al the work accomplished under the direction of the board is carried on in the vernacular language. The Misses McBeth have great familiarity with it, and undoubtedly get nearer to the people in sympathy and in effective influence from the fact that they employ it exclusively. The pastors and supplies all preach to their congregations in their native tongue. Valuable as the agencies are that are acquainting the Indians with the English, the language of their country, there are still peculiar advantages which attend that direct work in the Indian language, which alone gains real access to the adult portions of the Indian communities. The Indians love their language, and it is only in their own tongue that any race of men can best be taught to worship God.

In the theological training school of Miss S. L. McBeth 6 students have been under instruction much of the time. Miss McBeth also has a class of 6 native women. In this department she is assisted by Mrs. C. Shearer, a resident of Mount Idaho. Miss Kate McBeth's school at Lapwai has numbered 9 pupils, but in addition to this she has carried on various labors in the families of the Indians round about Fort Lapwai, at the same time devoting herself to the work of the Sabbath school. She has succeeded in arousing a good deal of interest among the young people at Fort Lapwai, and has organized a Christian Endeavor Society.

The removal of the Government school from the north of Lapwai Creek to Fort Lapwai has seemed to render it desirable to remove the church to the latter place, as the young connected with the Government school constitute a large and interesting portion of the congregation, and also an excellent field for Sabbath school and missionary work. There are, however, some obstacles in the way of procuring a proper site at the new location. Efforts are being made to this end, but nothing has as yet been consummated.

The total membership of the seven churches is 796. During the year 43 have been received into communion and fellowship. In the Sabbath school are 234 pupils. For religious purposes $672.26 have been contributed. This certainly is an exhibit worthy of imitation by the church at large. Considering the poverty of this people, the average of their contributions is certainly high. It amounts to about 84˝ cents per member. This seems the more creditable when we consider that the year 1890 was one of great drought, and many of the Indians had great difficulty in gaining the bare necessaries of life.

The past year has been signalized by valuable services rendered to the Nez Percés and to the mission by Miss Alice Fletcher, agent of the Government for the distribution of land in severalty to the Nez Percé Indians. She has been instrumental in securing valuable allotments of land for two or three of the most important churches, and is still using her influence for the permanent establishment of the Lapwai church in a more available situation. Miss Fletcher having spent several of the summer months at these various stations and having become thoroughly acquainted with the work, its methods, and its results, has rendered confidence and sympathy of the Christian women interested in the Woman's North Pacific Presbyterian Board of Missions. Through the personal gifts of different individuals provision has been made for the removal of the Lapwai church edifice to a new and more available site, if such site can be secured, and for the erection of small houses for Miss McBeth and for the native preacher at Fort Lapwai. The Kamiah church edifice was repainted and otherwise improved during the year, through the generous gift of a friend in Pittsburg, Pa.

Altogether, the outlook of the mission among the Nez Percés is most favorable.

From: Journal of the Twenty-First Annual Conference of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners, with Representatives of Missionary Boards and Indian Rights' Association, pp. 1219-1232.

. . . Dr. ELLINWOOD. . . . We have also work among the Choctaws; but I pass at once to our work among the Nez Percés. And here I may say I have come to Washington largely to learn more about our work there from Miss Fletcher. She knows more about it than anyone else, because she has spent three years in allotting land in severalty there. She has been in thorough touch with those two grand missionaries, the Misses McBeth, who are the only missionaries we have there. I am glad Mr. Boyd redeemed his remark that in one place they had "only a woman" by his rapturous encomiums upon the Misses Dougherty, whom I know well, because I have been at Round Lake. I do not know anywhere in the annals of missions, present or past, instances of grander heroism than we find here and there in these Indian missions, afforded by women. We have an interesting and successful theological seminary among the Nez Percés. It has raised up all our native preachers there. It has taken them from blanket Indians and has trained them in theology and has brought them up to a point where the presbyteries have been ready to receive them and ordain them, so that there are now about ten or twelve. The name of that institution is Miss Sue McBeth. She is the living embodiment of it. She has done that entire work. She has learned the Nez Percé language and has put herself into complete touch and sympathy with the Indians. She thinks their thoughts. They trust her. They know she is on their side—sometimes too vigorously, in the squabbles with the agents. She is Scotch, and that means a good deal. She has ideas of her own. I do not know of a grander figure, a more splendid object-lesson of what may come from getting right down among these people and showing sympathy of heart, than we find in that work. I know Miss Fletcher appreciates all I have said of these two women. Kept as we are, by the force of circumstances, in this work, we are glad that we are so kept, for we need as many arms as possible to do it. . . .

MISS FLETCHER. To take five minutes out of three years' experience among the Nez Percés is not easy. I will give you a little picture of the work of those two remarkable women to whom reference has been made, the Misses McBeth. They are unlike save in their energy, their patience, their strength, and their kindness. Miss Sue McBeth was the earlier upon the reservation, coming there eighteen or nineteen years ago. Mr. Spaulding began Christian work among these Indians. Passing away shortly after his mantel fell upon Miss McBeth. He was interested in the training of native teachers or lay preachers and missionaries among the people. She took up that work and carried it forward. She is no longer upon the reservation, but at Mount Idaho, a little settlement unlike anything I know of in the East, at the foot of the mountains, but holding very tightly to the court-house, a small structure which gives it the importance of the county seat, that being a thing of great importance in a new country. She is in a little house of three rooms, one rather large which is her school-room, one of moderate size which is her reception room, and one very small chamber, her little retiring place. There she lives, entirely alone, a faithful Chinaman coming in to look after necessary matters once a day. She had an interesting experience in the Christian commission during the war and also in teaching the Indians in the Indian Territory. Owing to a very severe shock which she received during the war she is partially paralyzed. I mention that to show how much she has done. She has attached to her theological school something which I never knew to be attached to such a school before. That is a series of cottages in which live the wives and children of the men whom she is training, and these wives and children are taught to read and the elements of education and the women are taught many things in the way of living, so that the theological students, when they go out among the people, go with helpmeets in their wives, and their homes are everywhere models and lessons to the people.

The work of Miss Kate McBeth is exclusively among the people, but that of Miss Sue is unique and is looked on with pride by all Kamas prairie. It has done great good and it shows what one active, persistent woman can accomplish. . . .