NEW TRAILS
WHILE danger of the Indian attacks was still hanging over Bannack
and the other settlements, new orders came to William Van Orsdel. A
Conference in session at St. Louis had heard an account of the young
missionary’s work; and these wise men seeing how rapidly Montana was
developing made plans for the extension of the work of the church in
new fields. Their maps showed them a great unsettled section beyond the
mountains known as the Bitter Root Valley. It would be a hard piece of
work and no tenderfoot could be sent to open up that section. There was
but one man for the new frontier, and obediently, Brother Van took a
last look at the tiny church just dedicated and bade farewell to the
people of Bannack.
The ride before the missionary covered a distance of about one hundred
and fifty miles through the country where the Indians were carrying
on their warfare with the soldiers. The trail which he followed was
the very one taken by Lewis and Clark in September, 1805, on their way
to the Pacific Coast. The explorers had been most hospitably received
by the Indians, whom they found encamped at Ross Hole. They greeted
the “white gods” with all the awe of their simple natures and a feast
and formal council was held in their honor. They called the newcomers
“So-Yap-Po,” meaning “the crowned ones,” because they wore round hats
or caps.
As Brother Van and his pony traveled through the historic country,
sometimes the long grass would reach to the horse’s head on each side
of the trail; then stretches of barren and rocky ground with patches
of sage brush would be reached, and again they would come suddenly to
steep-banked creeks hidden in the tall grass. The road led up through
the pass, now called Gibbon Pass, but the tragic encounter which gave
it that name had but recently taken place.
When Chief Joseph, the leader of the Nez Percés Indians, fully realized
that the United States troops had been sent to drive him and his band
from their valley, he determined to migrate to Canada. The troops were
in hot pursuit, and finding all direct routes cut off, the Indians came
east through Lo Lo Pass into Montana. At Stevensville they paid for all
supplies purchased and gave notice that all that they wanted was to go
on their journey unmolested. When the soldiers in search of assembled
Indians heard at Stevensville about Chief Joseph’s party, they gave
chase and a number of residents of the place joined them.
The Indians camped at Big Hole and the soldiers, under command of
General Gibbon, suddenly found themselves close to the camp one night.
They could hear the sound of Indian voices; so one of the soldiers
climbed a tree and was horrified to see a great many camp-fires
burning. Precautions were taken at once and no camp-fires were kindled
by the white troops. Hard bread had to be their only fare, a not very
substantial food for their need in the fighting on the following
eventful day, August 9, 1877.
When dawn was beginning to push back the shadows of the night, an
Indian herder came out to look after the ponies; he stumbled over the
waiting soldiers. The alarm was given immediately and the herder was
shot and killed. Instantly all was in confusion. Braves forgot their
guns and fled; ponies broke bounds and ran wild; dogs barked; but the
Indians reformed rapidly and the battle was on. It lasted all day and
the Indians fought like demons. They captured the only cannon and two
thousand rounds of ammunition. They set fire to the grass in which the
troops had hid so that the soldiers were nearly suffocated at first,
but the wind changed and the smoke blew in the red men’s faces. The
troops were cheered by this turn in their favor, and fought bravely
and desperately, although they had been so long without proper food
or sleep.
Suddenly the firing ceased. A captured man had told the Indians that
more “walking soldiers” were coming. Fearing to be utterly destroyed
the Indians fled, leaving eighty-nine dead men on the battle-field.
Chief Joseph was compelled to surrender when only eighty miles from
the Dominion line where strategic measures were used. In his desperate
attempt for freedom, and by the record of his later life, he gained the
high esteem of the United States government for his lofty character.
His people had honorable intentions but they found it hard to submit
to the conquering white man.
Illustration: Courtesy of the American Bureau of Ethnology.
CHIEF JOSEPH, LEADER OF THE NEZ PERCÉS AT THE
BATTLE OF BIG HOLE
As Brother Van reached Big Hole on his way to Missoula a scene of
horror greeted his eyes. The bodies of the lately fallen heroes had
been hurriedly buried, for another Indian attack was impending. A
storm had followed which made the earth so soft that the prowling
wild beasts of the plains had exhumed the bodies of the brave men and
were devouring them. The missionary halted in his journey and sent a
messenger to Fort Missoula, which was then in course of erection. From
there a company of men was sent immediately to care for the bodies,
which were taken back to the church for a public funeral. So Brother
Van came for his first service in the new district into a scene of
sorrow and distress. Hearts were tender over the loss of these men and
to the waiting people he spoke words of comfort as he committed the
bodies to the earth. After scenes of terror and bereavement it is not
surprising that a great revival followed, and the new preacher was
again able to find “first members” for “first churches” in that great
section where the dread of the Indians’ fury was always present.
Missoula was the center chosen for the frontier district where Brother
Van was to preach and teach the people. Its name in the Indian language
means “a place of fear” or “at the stream of surprise or ambush.”
The town, which is near the mouth of Hell Gate Canyon, is now a great
distributing point for a farming region and is the site of the State
university. The little church in the settlement of Missoula had been
built by Brother Van’s friend, Dr. Iliff, who had been stationed there
previously for a short period.
Through the busy years spent at Virginia City and Bannack, these two
friends had met and labored frequently together. The experiences of
one holiday journey which they took make a story well worth repeating.
Dr. Iliff, his young bride, and Brother Van drove to Salt Lake City,
where the Rocky Mountain Conference was held in 1875. Although
attendance at the Conference was necessary, their journey was an outing
for them and gave them an opportunity to see civilization once more.
The Presiding Elder had a buggy, and in this the three friends made the
memorable trip. They drove through the wide, dusty prairie and over the
mountains, for they had to cross the main range of the Rockies. Each
night camp was made, and the little wife officiated at the jolly supper
which effaced all memory of the weary traveling.
The twilight hours were the moments when the ties of friendship were
strengthened, and the youthful spirits of the campers prompted many
pranks and contests. As they camped near Idaho Falls one evening the
sport was to determine which could catch the largest trout. This story
will never have a satisfactory ending, for, being a fish story, each
caught the largest, and, of course, no bride could decide against her
husband. The Sabbath days of the outing were taken by the travelers as
rest days for the horses, and as refreshing times for their own souls.
They reached Salt Lake City in good season, and found Bishop Haven
presiding over the Conference, and Brother Van’s old friend, Chaplain
McCabe, singing his way into the hearts of the people.
Conference Sunday came with a rousing sermon by the Bishop. The sermon
over, these two friends felt a longing to explore. Like culprits they
stole away in the afternoon and sought the great Mormon tabernacle.
They gazed in wonder at the huge building with its queer arched roof
which gave the whole structure the appearance of an inverted soup
tureen; then they ventured farther to see how it looked on the inside.
As usual the Mormons were gathering for their great Sunday service,
and the two guests from Montana sat down to listen to the famous Mormon
leader, Brigham Young. The building seats twelve thousand people and
every seat was filled.
After hearing a sermon sharply in contrast with what they had heard
from their own bishop, the curiosity of these Westerners was not
satisfied, so they tarried to examine the building and its surroundings.
When deepening twilight warned them that the time for departure was at
hand, they sought the entrance gate, but lo, the bars were down and no
watchful attendant was there, either to punish the intruders or to let
them out.
Brother Van and Dr. Iliff stood and looked at each other and then at
the high iron fence. Had they come from scenes of Indian troubles and
the hardships of the wide plains to be daunted by such an obstacle
as an iron gate? Off came preachers’ coats. Hats were flung high over
the fence and two agile pioneer ministers climbed over that formidable
barrier and dropped down to earth. Then coats and hats were donned, and
again these inquisitive friends continued their investigating tour.
They found themselves walking along Brigham Street on which stood
Amelia Palace, the residence erected for Young’s favorite wife. As
they looked at the building interestedly, they saw the Mormon leader
himself pacing the walk and followed by two wives. Again the spirit
of adventure prompted them and they dared each other to cross the
street, speak to, and shake hands with the august leader of Mormonism.
No sooner said than done. In a moment the two men were bowing and
introducing themselves as Methodist preachers from the West, and
proffering eager hands. Brigham Young looked at them with an amused
twinkle in his eyes, and cordially shook hands, saying, “I certainly
am glad to shake hands with you. I was a Methodist once myself!”
The friendship of these two young missionaries in the new West grew
deeper and sweeter with the passing days in their work in Montana. At
one time they held united revival services at Virginia City. They rode
into the town unannounced and proceeded to seek a place where they
might hold meetings. The old opera house was secured and there they
began their preaching and singing. The people attended out of curiosity
at first, but a real earnestness came with the passing days, and many
were started on the way toward living a new, clean life.
Billy Blay was one of the men who left off his evil habits. The
evangelists had heard of this notorious drunkard. They went to his
hut with its dirt roof and floor where the poor sot was huddled in his
blankets. They talked with him about other ways of living, and prayed
with him. He promised to come to church, and to the amazement of the
townspeople, Billy Blay not only kept his promise, but he came sober.
During the services he was saved from his sins and took a fresh start
in life. After realizing that his sins would be forgiven, he said,
“Give me pen and paper. I want to write to my wife and children in
Wisconsin.”
That Billy Blay could write was astonishing to the people of the
town, who knew him only as a notorious drunkard. Now he wrote like an
educated man. While he waited for an answer to the letter which broke
a twelve years’ silence, he gave himself into the care of Brother Van
and Dr. Iliff. He had great natural ability, and he spoke to others
about his new experience so effectively that he was at last given an
exhorter’s license and made a third member of the evangelistic group.
After a little time Billy Blay heard from his wife. She was ill, and
had believed him to be dead. Money for his journey back home was raised
in the two institutions of the town that knew him, the church and the
saloon, and the family was reunited. This new preacher gave his life to
missionary work in a logging-camp in Wisconsin, making another link in
the chain of missionary endeavor which will some day bind the world in
a great Christian fellowship.
This first evangelistic trip made by Brother Van and Dr. Iliff
meant much to the new territory of Montana. To-day in making a trip
through the same section, you would travel by rail or automobile, but
everywhere you would find living monuments of the wise pioneering of
these comrade missionaries. Not only new churches, new congregations,
and new members, but in many cases new towns have sprung up where the
partners held a first service.
The two men have always loved to recount the experiences of those
days, and especially to tell about their adventure in crossing Madison
River. After the meetings at Virginia City, the two evangelists had
an itinerary planned ahead. One appointment was at Madison River
schoolhouse. By the mail to Virginia City had come a precious package
from the East for Dr. Iliff’s wife. This little woman had come to the
West gladly with her earnest young husband, but the people at home
had distressing thoughts about the frontier hardships that she had
to endure. There were hardships certainly but of these she never
complained. Now, here was a package from home!
When the evangelists got into the buggy which was to carry them to
the schoolhouse, the precious bundle was carefully stowed away. They
traveled to Madison River, which they had to cross, and found it in
flood with the melted snow from the mountains. The old bridge had been
washed away. So the two young men sat on the edge of the ruins and
talked things over.
“Shall we give up the trip?” asked Dr. Iliff.
“No, we can’t do that. The people are expecting us,” said Brother Van.
“Well, let’s try to cross,” replied his chum.
In they plunged, driving the horses toward the nearest point on the
opposite bank. When they were about one third of the distance across
the river the buggy began to float and the horses began to swim.
“Van, can you swim?”
“Not a lick!”
“Well, you get up on the seat, take that package and keep it dry,”
shouted Dr. Iliff as he jumped out.
He unfastened the horses and they swam to an island in the stream. Then
he began to guide the floating buggy toward the bank. In the meantime
Brother Van sat still, holding the bundle aloft that it might not be
soaked. When they reached the edge of the flood in safety he deposited
the bundle on the seat and climbed out into the water to help push
the buggy up the steep bank. Valiantly they pushed. The buggy went up
slowly and then slid back. Again they boosted and again the slippery
banks failed to hold the load.
“Van, you aren’t pushing!”
“Yes, I am!”
“Well, I’m all played out. Now let us try once more. Now all together!”
They gave a mighty push and the buggy went over. But, alas! the bundle
had slipped out into the water, and as they looked, it was being
rapidly carried down-stream. Iliff, who was standing on the high bank,
called out, “Van, you’d better get that package. It belongs to my wife.”
In the dismay of the moment, Brother Van forgot that he didn’t know
how to swim. Out he struck. With mighty splashes and flounderings, he
overtook the package and brought it to shore. Then those two preachers
stood and looked at each other, wet to the skin, hatless and disheveled,
hands torn and bleeding, sermons no longer dry, and the package
seemingly ruined. In a moment they burst into boyish laughter, and
all was well. While they consulted as to the next move, a ranchman
came along and took them home with him. From a promiscuous jumble
of clothing the preachers were outfitted. When they were dressed and
came into the light of the room and beheld each other, they laughed
again like truant schoolboys. They were comical figures enough in the
makeshift garments of that frontier home. They went to church in those
clothes, and began a revival which meant a great deal to the life of
that community.
The bundle? Oh, that was a fine black silk dress. When the preachers
returned to the ranchman’s home, they found their own clothes dry and
in condition for wearing. The beautiful, lustrous silk found in the
package was hung in rich folds about the room to dry. The water in
Madison River was crystal clear and did not injure the silk, which was
of good grade.
An amazing thing about this evangelistic team was that though of the
East eastern, yet they won immediate favor with the people among whom
they labored. The shrewd Westerners would have detected any insincerity
in the missionaries, and the cowboy’s mission in life seemed to be to
“shoot up” anything not genuine. It is hard for us to-day to imagine
the wild and lawless life on those lonely plains of the great West.
These two men, and many other pioneers for the church, carried on their
ministry in the face of severe handicaps in a frontier region. The
principal difficulties grew out of the isolation of the settlements,
and the slow means of communication with the older parts of the country.
The Missouri River provided the natural means of access to the
Northwest, and as early as 1851 fire-boats began to reach Fort Benton.
For a long period only one boat a year made this hard passage; then
gold was discovered, and there followed a rush of new settlers, so that
in 1866, forty steamers came into the old fur-trading post. For a third
of a century the stage-coach had no rival as the means of travel for
passengers. One of the most famous stage lines was over Mullen’s Trail,
which ran west from Fort Benton for hundreds of miles. This trail was
opened through government land by Captain Mullen and his company of
soldiers for the use of miners. Holliday’s Overland Stage Line played
an important part in the development of the West. It ran from Atchison,
Kansas, to Denver, Colorado, and to Salt Lake City, Utah, where other
lines connected with it. One of these lines extended to Virginia City
in what had been Brother Van’s district, and from there to Helena,
a distance altogether of nineteen hundred miles, usually covered in
twenty-two days.
In order to secure rapid transportation for the mails, the Pony
Express was established in 1861 and maintained for three years. A
band of swift riders, eighty in number, would cover the vast distances
of the prairie in an incredibly short space of time. One rider, for
instance, would leave Sacramento, while another rider started from
St. Joseph, Missouri, at the eastern end of the route. Each would ride
swiftly and as silently as possible, guarding the precious mail at all
hazards, and would come, after fifteen to twenty miles of riding, to a
station where a fresh horse, saddled and bridled, was held by a waiting
agent. The riders were allowed two minutes for the change of horses;
then on they went over the ever-widening prairie to the next station.
The fastest time in which a piece of mail was ever carried was seven
days and seventeen minutes.
Sometimes the station was found to be but a smoking pile of ruins,
and sometimes, alas, the station-keeper would be discovered scalped
by wandering Indians. It is said that only one package was lost in the
three years that the Pony Express was operated. This happened when the
rider was killed after being robbed. Another time, the faithful pony
came in along with the package bound safely to the saddle; his rider
had been killed as he rode.
Omaha was the nearest railroad station, and to reach this distant city
meant a hard journey for the miner who had made his “pile” and wished
to go back home. Gold dust was the only money and it was weighed and
taken at its weight’s value. The traveler could go on horseback or
wagon to Fort Benton and then take passage on a steamboat to Sioux City,
Iowa. Another method of travel was to follow the trail on horseback to
Salt Lake City, and take the train or the stage-coach from there. The
cost of the latter mode of travel can be estimated when it is known
that the sending of a letter in that way cost two dollars and a half.
All travel was dangerous, for with the finding of gold, desperate men
had come west, who robbed and killed for the wealth so hazardously
secured by the miners. Hold-ups were regular occurrences, particularly
between Bannack and Virginia City, a distance of seventy miles.
Miners who had spent months of hard labor in the accumulation of a
few hundred dollars were never heard of again after starting from a
mine to a distant home eastward. Men were robbed in camp, daily and
nightly. Gambling and all forms of evil abounded. Many of the men who
disappeared were found to have been shot ruthlessly. The nature of the
country, with its canyons, gulches, and mountain passes, was especially
adapted to this means of highway robbery. The unpeopled distances
between the mining camps also helped the lawless element to do their
bloody work. Nowhere else on the face of the earth, nor at any period
since men became civilized, have murder, robbery, and social vice
presented such an organized front.
The young territory determined to stop this trade of stage-robbing
and formed a protecting band called the “Vigilantes.” The name is
associated with some of the bloodiest episodes of frontier days. In the
absence of any other protection, the Vigilantes took law into their own
hands, and dealt sternly with the highway robber and murderer. Between
December, 1863, and February, 1864, twenty-four “road agents” were
hanged by the Vigilantes for their crimes against the miners. Two years
later, one million and five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold was
taken from Helena to Fort Benton unmolested.
The early Vigilantes were the best and most intelligent men in the
mining section. They saw that in the absence of all law they must
become a law unto themselves, or submit to the bloody code of the
desperadoes by whom they were surrounded. They entered on their work
without knowing how soon they might have to encounter a force greater
than their own. They did their work swiftly and efficiently as
relentlessly they followed the offender. Little mercy was meted out
to the guilty men, and many a lonely tree on the plains held ghastly
reminders of the swift vengeance which overtook the robbers. The
Vigilantes hung many a hardened sinner, giving him first an opportunity
to make his peace with God.
Little by little a change was being wrought in the territory, and the
missionaries were helping to bring about a condition of law and order.
In this period of transformation, Brother Van was “hail fellow well
met” with the people. One gambler said, “I like that old scout, he
plays fair.” His singing helped him to win them, for he would stand
on the hillside and sing, “Shall we Gather at the River,” or “Over and
Over,” and the miners, gamblers, and settlers would come to the service.
Illustration: DR. THOMAS C. ILIFF AND BROTHER VAN, WHO HAD MANY
ADVENTURES TOGETHER IN THE OPENING WEST
Arriving at a typical mining camp one day, the scout-preacher took
possession of a new building for a service. It proved to be a saloon
such as he had borrowed before. It was an ordinary occurrence for
lights to be snuffed out by bullets in a meeting that did not meet with
approval from the men, but they did not put out the lights when Brother
Van spoke. They liked his simple, sweet message, and, above all, they
liked his singing. The song “The Gospel Train is coming” particularly
pleased them, for the railroad language held new and fascinating words
in a community which was just growing accustomed to the railroad. One
of the men said to the preacher, “If you will sing that song to-morrow
night, I’ll bring forty men to hear you.”
“All right, that’s a bargain,” said the singer.
This man was a leader of the gang. He had a hurdy-gurdy which made
his saloon especially attractive. On the next night forty grizzled men
marched in and took their seats. No lights were put out. No disturbance
was made by the forty who had reserved seats, but something did happen:
that “hurdy-gurdy” man got on board of the “Gospel Train” and brought
along a number of his comrades.