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Brother Van

Chapter 1: BROTHER VAN
By Stella Wyatt Brummitt
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About This Book

A biographical portrait follows a pioneering minister from his youth at the Battle of Gettysburg into decades of ministry across the American Northwest. It narrates frontier travel and evangelistic campaigns up rivers and over new trails, close relationships and ceremonial adoption with Indigenous communities, collaborations with fellow clergymen, and institution-building including a nurses' home. Through anecdotes, testimonies, and regional episodes the book emphasizes sustained practical service, personal courage, and the challenges of spreading faith and social organization in a rapidly changing Montana frontier.

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Title: Brother Van

Author: Stella Wyatt Brummitt

Release date: December 16, 2017 [eBook #56184]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Richard Hulse and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROTHER VAN ***

BROTHER VAN

WILLIAM WESLEY VAN ORSDEL
But the Northwest knows him only as Brother Van

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation has been standardized.

Most abbreviations have been expanded in tool-tips for screen-readers and may be seen by hovering the mouse over the abbreviation.

This book has drop-caps at the start of each chapter. These drop-caps may adversely affect the pronunciation of the word with screen-readers.

This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note.

BROTHER VAN

By

STELLA W. BRUMMITT

NEW YORK
MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

Copyright, 1919, by

MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

To the Best Known and
Best Loved Man in Montana

BROTHER VAN

CONTENTS

  Foreword
I A Boy at Gettysburg
II Explorers of a Continental Purchase
III Westward
IV A Sky Pilot’s Race Up the Missouri
V Brother Van
VI A Brother to the Blackfoot
VII The Gospel Team
VIII Scouting for Uncle Sam
IX New Trails
X Great Heart with the Indians
XI Brother Van and New Montana
XII Seventy Years Young

ILLUSTRATIONS

1 William Wesley Van Orsdel, known as “Brother Van.”
2 The Battle of Gettysburg.
3 A statue in honor of Sacajawea in Portland, Oregon.
4 Sitting Bull was dressed in full war regalia.
5 Historic Fort Benton, where Brother Van ate jerked buffalo meat.
6 Brother Van visiting a Blackfeet medicine lodge.
7 The ceremony of adoption into the Blackfeet tribe.
8 Indians were terrifying settlers everywhere.
9 Brother Van’s dispatch to the Helena Herald.
10 Chief Joseph, leader of the Nez Percés at Big Hole.
11 Dr. Thomas C. Iliff and Brother Van, who had many adventures together.
12 Brother Van was “hail fellow well met” with the people.
13 Brother Van shot the herd leader in the head.
14 The Van Orsdel Home for Nurses at Helena.
15 Great Heart with a Blackfoot brother.
16 A copper mine at Butte.