 At the end of 1891 Ormsbee was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to serve on a commission to treat with the Paiute Indians at the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, in Nevada, to get the tribe to relinquish a claim to part of their reservation.The same year, he was appointed by President Harrison U.S. Land commissioner at Samoa to act with similar British and German commissions to adjust claims of foreigners to lands in Samoa, representing millions of acres of land.Ormsbee completed his work in May 1893, returned to the United States and resumed his law practice in Brandon.