BROTHER VAN
ABOUT seven o’clock on the first day of July, 1872, a gloomy, clouded
Sunday morning, the _Far West_ drew up to the landing at Fort Benton
and established the record for an up-river trip on the Missouri,
seventeen days and twenty hours from Sioux City. That was an exciting
Sabbath day for the settlement. The _Nellie Peck_ arrived an hour later;
while from St. Louis came the _Josephine_ after a sixty-days’ trip.
A number of ox-trains were waiting to take the incoming freight to
the towns and settlements beyond; some of these were many days distant.
Wagons drawn by mules and horses were crowded around the landing, eager
for what business might turn up. Cowboys, Indians, and soldiers from
the Fort mixed in the crowd, making the motley assembly which greeted
our Sky Pilot as he stepped on shore. All the white families came from
the tiny shacks of the new town to join in the curious throng as it
welcomed this unusual stir in the monotony of frontier life.
The tenderfoot did not know the terror of “gumbo,” but as he made his
way through the streets in the rain, he found the soil sticking to his
shoes in such quantities as to make walking difficult. It was God’s
day, and in spite of the dismal weather, the missionary trudged through
the town seeking a place to hold services. He was told that he could
use the courthouse. This sounded encouraging and he turned toward the
building eagerly. Disappointment was awaiting him, for it was only an
adobe structure, and the rain had washed holes in the roof and walls
through which muddy streams of water were pouring.
In continuing his search for a place in which to hold worship, William
learned that a Roman Catholic priest, Father Van Gorp, was conducting
a service in a saloon near by. He sought him out and was received
cordially. On hearing the desire of the newcomer, the priest assured
him that he could have the room as soon as his service was concluded,
for he intended to take passage on a boat which was to leave the Fort
in a few hours.
It was at that afternoon meeting of his first day in Fort Benton
that William Van Orsdel received the name of Brother Van. There
was a frankness and kindness in the young man’s manner toward these
strangers before him. The years of unselfish service for others, and
his conviction regarding the work he must do in the West had developed
a magnetic personality. The rough and hearty frontier people were keen
judges of character. They saw at once in the stranger, who had come
among them so naturally and courageously, a sincere, helpful spirit.
“Brother” was just the word that described him. “Van” was as much of
that lengthy and dignified name of his as they felt that they could
take the trouble to say. So, with the good-natured bluntness of the
West, “Brother Van” he became. It now rarely occurs to any of his
friends and neighbors that he has any other name. They would probably
assure you, if you were to raise the question with them, that he was
christened “Brother Van.”
Crowded in the saloon on that afternoon were the steamboat officers,
roustabouts, freighters, cowboys, Indians, and settlers, making a
strange audience for the young missionary’s first Montana sermon. He
would talk for a while, and then, when the attention wavered, he would
sing the songs that some of them had heard back East before they had
come under the hardening influences of the rough western life. Brother
Van asked if they would like an evening service and received an eager
request for one. The news of the arrival of this tenderfoot and of
his message and singing had traveled fast; so in the evening a larger
congregation gathered. Again he gave the message that many of them
had been missing in a long period of separation from church life, and
again hearts were stirred, as for the first time in years the uncertain
voices tried to follow the singing of the gospel songs which had been
sung “back home.”
There is no written record of the sermons of that day; but the simple,
straightforward manner of the preacher made a lasting impression on
the hearts of that strange crowd. The missionary spirit of the zealous
youth so won the respect of the cowboys that they withheld from this
tenderfoot the “initiation” which they were accustomed to give to
strangers. Brother Van was a vigorous youth with a florid complexion
and light hair. The simple directness of his manner and the good humor
showing in his blue eyes, so ready to twinkle with fun, gained fast
friends for him in the odd mixture of peoples.
While the _Far West_ was in port, Captain Coulson extended the
hospitality of the boat to his missionary passenger, though his
obligations had really ceased when he reached the town. When the boat
started back down the river, carrying the only people whom he knew,
pangs of homesickness came to the lonely youth; now he felt himself
truly a stranger in a strange land. But a new friend appeared. A good
woman who had been at the service on Sunday opened her home to him,
and established that night an “institution” which gradually extended
throughout the state of Montana, “Brother Van’s room.” Even in the
newest town where a beginning was just being made, there was always
some home in which a place was set apart to receive the welcome
traveler whenever he could come that way.
Illustration: RUINS OF HISTORIC FORT BENTON, WHERE BROTHER VAN
ATE JERKED BUFFALO MEAT AND HEARD TALES OF INDIAN
WARFARE
On the Monday following that eventful Sabbath, Brother Van set
out to explore the town. The central interest of Fort Benton was its
fur trading. This industry was developed in the United States by the
enterprise of John Jacob Astor. He saw that Canada was profiting by
this trade, and in 1812 he petitioned Congress to establish fur trading
posts within the boundaries of the United States, and to introduce such
goods as were necessary for bartering with the Indians.
Trading posts soon began to dot the vast wilderness of the North and
West. They were all built on the same general plan. A heavy stockade
was made by driving tree trunks into the earth so close together as to
make a wall, the only opening left being a massive double gate. In one
of the sections of this gate was a small door through which in times of
danger the trader could admit a single person at a time. He could open
it and talk with any Indian who came, without allowing the visitor to
enter. Within the outer stockade was an open space; then in the center
was a strongly built log or adobe structure containing the trader’s
quarters, storeroom, and the fort. In the wall of the storeroom was
an opening about eighteen inches square. This was called the “trading
hole” and was protected by heavy shutters controlled from the inside.
When the Indians came with their packs of furs the trader’s men met
them outside the stockade, and took from them all guns, bows, arrows,
tomahawks, and any other dangerous weapons which they might be carrying.
Then, in a group at a time, they were admitted to the stockade and
the heavy gates locked behind them. They were virtually prisoners, and
advancing across the open space between the stockade and the fort, they
would come to the trading hole, where the agent of the fur merchant’s
company was waiting to barter with them.
One by one the Indians would offer to the trader, who was often an
unscrupulous cheat, the beautiful soft furs which had been secured by
trapping and shooting amid the dangers and the hardships of the cold
and lonely North. Gaudy calico, cheap blankets, or the bad combination
of bullets and whisky, were given in exchange for the valuable pelts.
To such traders, to certain selfish and designing settlers, and to some
of the government agents, who have steadily driven the Indians back and
back from wide prairie to a hunting ground, and then to a reservation,
the red man owes much of the degradation and humiliation which overtook
him.
As we look curiously at the straggling herds of buffalo, deer, and
antelope in our parks and preserves to-day, we can scarcely realize
how abundant was the game which the early hunters and trappers found
roaming over the “Great American Desert.” There is evidence of one
herd of buffalo that made the earth brown for a stretch of country
seventy miles long by thirty miles wide. On one of the first railroads
to be laid across the plains of Kansas, a train was once held up for
nine hours while a herd crossed the tracks. Both whites and Indians
slaughtered these vast herds carelessly and wantonly, using a variety
of methods. A government report of 1875 speaks of one hundred thousand
buffalo that were killed near Dodge City, Kansas. Only the saddles were
used for food. The same report says: “It is known that south of the
Arkansas River, west of Wichita, there were from one to two thousand
men killing buffalo for hides alone.” At one place on the south forks
of the Republican River in 1874, there were six thousand and five
hundred carcases from which the hides had been stripped.
Towers for religious purposes, or medicine lodges, were built by the
Indians with the horns of buffalo, antelope, and deer. Some of these
towers were so high that they could be seen for many miles. Father
De Smet speaks of seeing one of them from the Missouri River as he
made his way westward in the year 1846. As a result of this enormous
destruction of the herds, the hide markets became so glutted that
the skins of bulls brought only one dollar, and the hides of cows and
calves from forty to sixty cents each.
Just outside of the city of Fort Benton there was pointed out to
Brother Van a famous cliff about one hundred and twenty feet high and
rising sheer from the river. There the Indians were in the habit of
killing buffalo by a method that is interesting if brutal. A fleet,
active young man of the tribe would disguise himself as a buffalo by
wearing a buffalo skin with the head attached. He was possessed also of
a “Iuis Kini” (i uis-ki ni) or buffalo stone, which gave power to call
buffalo. Before a run to a “falling place,” he spent the night invoking
the aid of the gods by burning sweet grass and sweet pine to draw the
spirits. He purified himself by passing through the smoke of this fire.
When all was ready the buffalo hunter would attract the
attention of the herd by strange antics, and then begin to call:
“Hoo-hoo-hoo-ini-uh-ini-uh.” Men and women concealed behind rocks began
to yell; and the buffalo, terrified, ran with ever increasing speed
toward the decoy, who led them toward the precipice. The herd, which
might vary in number from one hundred and fifty to ten thousand, would
rush blindly forward and plunge over the wall to death in the shallow
water beneath. The decoy would dodge into a crevice previously chosen
in the edge of the cliff.
Brother Van had arrived in this interesting country of Indian exploits
just before an eventful day, the Fourth of July. He was invited to the
Fort as a guest of the non-commissioned officers. The Stars and Stripes
fluttered over the rude barracks every day, but in the town the flag
was displayed to show that it was a holiday. Wild scenes were enacted
in the saloons, and Indians, who were waiting with their hard-earned
furs, learned of the white man’s “fire-water,” which was used freely
in the celebration.
Out in the stockade of the fort a feast was spread. The boat had
brought bread and dried fruit, both of which were great delicacies.
These, combined with the usual western fare, made a sumptuous repast.
The western fare consisted of “jerked buffalo,” which is simply
dried buffalo meat, fresh antelope meat, a great delicacy even to the
westerner, and the best dish of all, dried buffalo tongue.
Speeches were made and weird stories told of the warfare with the
Indians. The eastern youth listened and wondered, and on that day he
pondered over the subject of the red man’s condition. Later he decided
the matter in his own mind; he knew that the Indian had been more
sinned against than sinning, and that the original American had been
greatly misunderstood.
Those days of tarrying were fruitful days for William Van Orsdel. Not
only were the cowboys and freighters won to friendship by his sympathy,
but the Indians’ confidence was gained. Friends, whose helpfulness
was to last through his busy lifetime, became interested in him. Young
Tatton, a tall, vigorous, fighting scout, a member of Company B of the
Seventh Infantry, was one of the men who became one of Brother Van’s
fast friends in those days. He knew the West and understood its joys
and privations thoroughly. He had noticed the new preacher as he faced
the motley crowd that first day in Fort Benton. Though Tatton was a
Roman Catholic, he admired the zeal which had found a way and a place
for religious services on the very day on which the missionary had set
foot on the new soil. With leveled eyes the soldier scout had watched
the crowd as they listened to that first earnest sermon of the eager
newcomer, and to Brother Van he gave his support and a loyal and
lasting friendship.