James Oliver Van de Velde (April 3, 1795 – November 13, 1855) was a U.S. Catholic bishop born in Belgium. He served as the second Roman Catholic Bishop of Chicago between 1849 and 1853. He traveled to Rome in 1852 and petitioned the Pope for a transfer to a warmer climate, due to his health. In 1853, the transfer was granted; Van de Velde became bishop of the Diocese of Natchez, in Mississippi, where he served until his death two years later. Childhood His full name, almost never referenced in any materials about his life or religious career, was John Andrew James Oliver Benedict Rottheir Van de Velde. He was born April 3, 1795 in Lebbeke, near Dendermonde, then in the Austrian Netherlands and now in Belgium. He was soon given to a "pious aunty" to raise in Sint-Amands, in Flanders. A priest, fleeing the French Revolution, was staying with the same family and encouraged the boy to be devout. At the age of ten, Van de Velde was sent to a boarding school in Ghent. He did so well that by the age of eighteen he was teaching French and Flemish. He had been teaching for only a short time when the Battle of Waterloo changed the political situation of the Low Countries. Belgium was reunited with the Netherlands under William of Orange. Planning to emigrate to England or Italy, Van de Velde began studying English and Italian. However, a seminary director persuaded him to stay in Belgium and teach Latin, French, and Flemish, while studying religion with the possibility of joining the priesthood. Education In 1815, Van de Velde began attending the famous Archiepiscopal Seminary at Mechlin. Two years later, he was one of the students selected by Father Charles Nerinckx, a missionary headed to the Americas on May 16, 1817. The initial plan was for Van de Velde to complete his theological studies in a seminary in Bardstown, Kentucky. However, while crossing the Atlantic in the brig Mars, Van de Velde fell during a storm and "burst a blood vessel", which caused such loss of blood that, upon arrival in America, he was left too weak to make the overland journey to Kentucky. Instead, he retired to St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore to recuperate. The storm had been so violent that the ship was adrift for three days without sails or a helm until repairs could be