Career
Throughout his career, Brother Van founded churches, universities, and hospitals. He converted and ministered to homesteaders, miners, and Native Americans. He worked with the elites and the poor, the famous (Master in Surgery Russell counted Brother Van among his friends) and the forgotten in a career that spanned nearly fifty years.
He was born in Hunterstown, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1848.
He arrived in Fort Benton, Montana by steamboat in 1872. Initially, he sought to work among the new cowboys that were exploiting with cattle the open grass ranges left after the decimation of the vast buffalo herds.
Van Orsdel traveled by horse from cow-camp to cow-camp spreading the gospel and baptizing the young cow hands. As the Native American population lost control of their lands and Montana was settled by white migrants, Van Orsdel began to minister to homesteaders and the larger communities that supported them in Great Falls and Helena, Montana.
He founded over 100 churches in northern and central Montana, but his greatest contribution was the establishment of public institutions like hospitals and universities.
In 1889, Van Orsdel founded "Montana University", which later became the Intermountain Home for Children. Furthermore, Van Orsdel was influential in the establishment of present day Rocky Mountain College, one of the first institutions of higher learning in the state. He died in Great Falls, Montana on December 19, 1919.
