William Wesley Van Orsdel

Rev. William Wesley Van Orsdel (March 20, 1848 – December 19, 1919), or "Brother Van", was a Methodist circuit rider in Montana who made a significant contribution to the spread of Methodism in Montana and the early development of the state’s public institutions. 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 (C.M. 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. The artist, C.M. Russell remembered those early years when he first met Brother Van at a ranch in the Judith Basin in central Montana, "These men who knew little law, and one of them I knew wore notches in his gun, men who had not prayed since they knelt at their mother's knees, bowed their heads while you, Brother Van, gave thanks."

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. He is buried at Forrestvale Cemetery in Helena Montana.