Stella Wyatt Brummitt

“ This massacre at Little Big Horn, now so memorable a part of American history, threw a gloom over the whole nation. The New York Tribune on July 3, 1876, said: “It is the eve of Independence Day, the Centennial Fourth. All the land is ablaze with enthusiasm. Alas! if the tidings of General Custer’s terrible disaster could be borne on the wings of the four winds, dirges, not anthems would be heard in the streets of Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco. ”

“ The thrill of adventure is there, although it may be different from that which was found in the early days of the frontier, and the joy of conquest remains. The winning of a new America is yet to be achieved in many of those restless, throbbing centers of industrial life where men have not yet learned how to bring the spirit of Christ into their daily toil; where home life is narrow and harsh; where growing boys and girls are shut out from the opportunities for recreation and for training, that a preparation for healthy, capable citizenship demands. ”

“ I am going back the long trail to my people in the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will grow old with carrying them and yet the book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people, after the more snow, in the Big Council that I did not bring the book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness and they will go a long path to other hunting grounds. ”

“ At a landing near Fort Benton, a typical plainsman clad entirely in buckskin boarded the boat, saying, “I can’t stay in this place any longer. There are too many hostile Indians.” This was Jim Dexter, who became one of Montana’s great landholders and one of its well-known pioneers. From the first moment of meeting there sprang up a warm friendship between him and William Van Orsdel. This tie grew stronger in the long years following, as in their different fields of effort they threw themselves into the task of building a commonwealth in the wilderness. ”

“ It was this revengeful warrior that Brother Van had met at the river crossing, but danger held no terrors for him, and that night in the coulee, near the scene of the tragic murder of the Canadian prospector, he took the saddle from his pony, pillowed his head on it, and slept peacefully with the stars smiling down on him. God’s protection was with the man who had a vision of the life of peace and righteousness which could come to the West only through the gospel that it was his privilege to preach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To this end he greatly incited his people to murder and devastation, but one thing must be remembered, Sitting Bull believed firmly that the Indians were unfairly treated. He sternly declared, “God Almighty made me—God Almighty did not make me an agency Indian. I’ll fight and die fighting before any white man can make me an agency Indian.” And he did. He defied the government up to the very moment of his death in 1890; and his resistance did not end until he fell pierced by the bullets of the soldiers sent to take his person dead or alive. ”

“ Before dark a severe thunderstorm overtook the travelers, and the only shelter they could find was a lonely, deserted cabin. Here they spent the night, making the best of such comforts as were found in the government wagon. The coyotes sang a lonely song, and the prairie-dogs, their only neighbors, made vigorous protests against the intruders. This was the initiation of the tenderfoot preacher into the joys of overland journeying. ”

“ Around that interesting room is a record of the history of Montana. War-bonnets and tomahawks hang from pegs. In a rack are rifles which tell the story of firearm progress from the flintlock to the Springfield, and then to the Winchester. Indian beads, rugs, baskets, and blankets form a wealth of color on the walls, and before a great fireplace stands an easel, and lo, the artist is telling our story in a finer way. There are the figures of Lewis and Clarke on the canvas. An Indian village is in the background, and in the center we recognize the woman guide, Sacajawea. ”

“ Occasionally a solitary figure would come into the building and kneeling in the dust, would implore God to give him a reason against the prevalent unbelief. He would ask God to use these buildings for his own service, and for the Christian uplift of young people. Surely there was some use for them. The years passed, and this solitary figure began to see another need for his cherished Montana. The young people had long since been coming to the university on Capitol Hill, but in the wide expanses of the state there were yet many children unschooled. ”

“ The pioneers of the days of Brother Van’s young manhood lived the hearty open life of the wind-swept plains; the newcomers from Europe must toil in the dark mine shafts or amid the dust and roar of the mills and smelters. ”

“ Finally, he went off into the silence of the plains to communicate with the Great Spirit. He told of his desire for his people: that they should all be pure and strong; that the maidens should be contented; that they should dwell in a land where game abounded, and where wars should never come. From this great spiritual leader the Blackfeet tribe was said to have descended.
As Brother Van pursued his work among his beloved Indians, they became more and more attached to him. Like the white residents, they, too, accepted their kind-hearted visitor as a brother. ”

“ These men who started up the Missouri in the fleet bearing the expedition, little dreamed that from the territory which they were to explore there would be carved the great states of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon—fertile and prosperous states from which would come the necessities to strengthen nations in need in the great war more than a hundred years later. ”

“ It is not strange that as a young man he should respond with enthusiasm to the calls that were being made throughout the churches of the East for strong, energetic, and devoted men to enlist for Christian service in these new and difficult fields.
William had already proved the depth and earnestness of his Christian faith. When a boy on the farm he had given his life fully into God’s guidance and keeping. That he had caught the spirit of his Master he showed to all about him by his many acts of neighborly service to those who were in need. ”

“ The life of the trapper and trader, starved and godless, seems a haunting and an impossible dream. Yet the pastor has his problems. His church must be enlarged and modernized to meet the social demands of the little city. He must find means for providing recreation and wholesome entertainment in connection with the church, so that the people of the community may not have to depend for their amusement on the cheap “movie” theater with its sensuous appeals. ”

“ Is America now to show to those who have come as strangers to us, and who do such a large share of the hard work of our country, that these ideals of democratic brotherhood are being put into practise for the benefit of all?
Brother Van found a frontier region when he stepped ashore from the river boat at Fort Benton on that July morning in 1872. He threw himself into the life about him, and his years of service have brought friendship and hope and courage to lonely men and women and to aspiring young people all over a great commonwealth. ”

“ Great smelting and refining plants costing millions of dollars have been established around which thriving cities have quickly grown. In the maze of stacks, mills, ore-dumps, tracks, and surrounding streets filled with the cottages of the laborers, the visitor who has been to the new settlements on the plains and to the reservations sees a different Montana—not that of the rancher and the Indians but that of the industrial worker.
We have an enthusiastic guide when we travel through the mining regions with Brother Van. He keeps the spirit of the pioneer. ”

“ Suddenly some Indians came in crying, “White man! White man!” Eagerly the group seated around the fire left the lodge, as from its entrance they saw that Captain Clark’s party was drawing near. Sacajawea approached the watching Indians sucking her fingers, signifying that they were of her native tribe. As she advanced, a woman darted to meet her and weeping and laughing alternately embraced her. It was then found that they had been childhood friends and now were meeting for the first time since the day on which the Minnetarees had taken Sacajawea captive. ”

“ From a home-made cabinet the oldest daughter has taken a carefully folded bundle, and now at her bidding it is fastened to the ropes swaying from the pine tree. A steady pull brings Old Glory up to catch the breeze while the shining mountains seem to smile approval. ”

“ The drive to the church in a lumber wagon is a novel experience, and we understand why fur overcoats are called “life preservers,” for the air gives a foretaste of the winter’s cold. The congregation of Indians, plainsmen, business men, and college graduates gathers. The Indians interest us the most. These are the adopted brothers of Great Heart. These are the people whom William Van Orsdel loved before he had seen them and whom he had left the old Gettysburg home to serve. ”

“ The teachers to succeed Brother Van, Mr. Hammer, and all of that host of devoted workers who have given their whole lives for the building of a Christian civilization in the west must come from the young people of the church. Young men and young women of the new generation must have a vision clear enough to see the beckoning hands that point the way to great unfinished tasks. The high purpose of the boy from Gettysburg must fill other lives that will take up the new tasks, as hard as the old, perhaps harder, which the changing times have brought to Montana. ”

“ They brought back to the American public a romantic story of strange animals, of prairies, of rivers, of waterfalls, of mountains, and, above all, of Indians with their weird, barbaric customs, their strength, and their eagerness to learn.
As a result of the travels of Lewis and Clark, and of other explorers and early settlers who followed them, a strong interest in the West sprang up among the people of the East. Many adventure-seeking boys left homes of comfort in the older states during the next fifty years in search of larger opportunities in the opening West. ”

“ It is a short drive over to the once owl-haunted, coyote-inhabited building, which for a time seemed to be Brother Van’s mistake. Children’s voices call a glad greeting, for now it is the Montana Deaconess School. Out on the campus is an old building which the boys have fitted up, and which they dignify by the name of “gym.” Class work which meets the regular school standards is done in this home, but that is only a part of its work. The development of strong, helpful Christian character is the great task to which the earnest teachers who labor here are devoting themselves. ”

“ Men made vast fortunes. Other men lost all that they had and went away broken in spirit. Gamblers won and lost; prospectors failed; but always Last Chance paid in gold.
Entering Helena to-day, you will find a thriving, bustling city, proud of one of the finest hotels in the Northwest. The hotel stands on the spot where the miner stuck in his pick. Enough gold was found in the soil to pay for the excavation, and this was taken from the “tailings,” or discarded earth handled by the early miners. But Helena was a typical mining town when the Eastern tenderfoot came. ”

“ These are not the only names by which this interesting man was called in the course of his long and thrilling career among cowboys and Indians. First he was little Billy Cody, the western messenger; then Wild Bill, the pony express rider, and as a grown man he was known as Bill Cody, the wagon master. Finally, to the heart’s delight of boys and girls the world over, he became Buffalo Bill. For many years before his death in 1917, he was generally spoken of as Colonel William F. Cody; but to the Indians he will always be their beloved “Pa-has-ka,” or “Long Hair.” ”

“ They had cut loose from the East with its old associations and conventionalities, and had come to face a new life on the frontier so full of promise. Imagine a town of two thousand inhabitants composed of people from every state in the Union, and from every civilized country in the world, of every color, race, and creed, speaking fifteen or twenty languages, and clinging to varying religious beliefs, and you will then have an idea of a mining town such as Brother Van found as he traveled through his district. ”

“ Thus young manhood brought to William the firm conviction that in the missionary service of his church in those distant regions of the Northwest, where there was such need for young men who could be at once both pioneers and Christian leaders, he would find the life-work which would allow him to be of the largest service to his country and to his God. ”

“ As he watched Montana develop with the anxiety that a father gives to the growth of an awkward, beloved boy, Brother Van saw a new need. Always had he ministered to sick and dying miners, cowboys, and settlers. But as the years passed he saw that it would be a great advantage to the state if the sick and dying could be cared for with all the help that modern medical science affords. He realized the necessity of placing patients under religious influence and teaching. The cure of souls was to him even more important than the cure of bodies ”

“ For ten days the meetings continued; many people having their interest in religion rekindled, and many others made to feel the obligation of right living for the first time. From these inspiring gatherings William Van Orsdel went to Walnut Bend, an old settlement where, with the exception of funeral sermons, no religious services had been held for six years. Here a great revival occurred which lasted three weeks, and forty citizens set to work to make their community life mean more for faith and goodness than ever before. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leaving the Indians, we find ourselves on the railroad and bound for the new frontier. The monotony of the prairie is only relieved by homes and schoolhouses but these appear at intervals as we travel. ”

“ Another people honor those dead. The Sioux Indians look upon General Custer as a god because of his bravery. His memory is honored and loved among them, and they call him the “Evening Star.”
In Lives of Famous Indian Chiefs, N. B. Wood says that there were two survivors of Custer’s last stand, Curley, the Crow scout, who put on a Sioux blanket and escaped, and the horse Comanche, the famous war horse of Captain Keogh. He was found bleeding from seven wounds, and was carried back by soldiers on a litter of blankets and poles. ”

“ One man does not need the well-chosen introductory speech from the new president. He is not allowed to finish it.
“Who’s all right?” sings out a yell-leader.
“Brother Van! Brother Van!” comes roaring back from the eager crowd.
No mention is made by the pioneer of his part in the enterprise which has made the Christian education of these eager students possible. When he finishes speaking, a demand is made: “A song! A song!” So he sings “Diamonds in the Rough” for them. Then we hasten to a meeting of the Board of Trustees, and arrive in time, for Brother Van is never late for an engagement. ”

“ Even the pony is no more and a Ford is not its successor. The salary for his first year’s work was nothing, and for the second it was seventy-five dollars. In later years he received seventeen hundred dollars. Yet every Protestant enterprise has had an impetus from Brother Van’s pocketbook.
He interested his church in the need of a hospital, and deaconesses were brought west and a hospital was started. Every one but the prime mover became discouraged by the hardships that the project encountered, but he continued to sing, to pray, to praise Montana, and to work for Montana. ”

“ Taking his sure-footed pony, Brother Van joined the riders, and soon the excitement of their hunt was on. An Indian honor was then conferred on this, their well-loved guest. After the herd of buffalo was sighted and had been started on the run, the Indians signified that the white man was to have the distinction of killing the magnificent specimen which was leading the herd. Riding toward the front of the stampeding beasts, the unskilled marksman picked out the herd leader and shot him in the head. It was a great shot. An Indian could have done no better. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A new America must be won in the restless, throbbing centers of industrial life.
It is in Butte that we find the heart of the great copper region of Montana. From the hill north of the city, ore to the value of a million and a half dollars has been taken. When Brother Van made his first visit there he found but fifty residents. Not only is it now a busy city of forty thousand inhabitants, but the character of the community has entirely changed. The settlers of that period were of American birth and parentage. To-day the great majority of the miners are from distant countries. ”

“ The city is now the most important railway center in the state. It has been called the “greatest mining camp in the world.” Brother Van’s visit was at the very beginning of the history of what is now a city of great interest to America.
When the snow cleared away the Gospel Team penetrated to the National Park, and one day on coming into the Upper Yellowstone Valley, Brother Van found a large congregation waiting. One man said: “If a herd of wild buffalo had run through the streets of St. Louis it could not have caused more comment than that a preacher had come to the Yellowstone.” ”