On his way to Chicago, Van de Velde stopped and said Mass in the southern regions of his new diocese; in St. Louis, Missouri and in the Illinois towns of Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Quincy. He preached in English, German, and French. He arrived in Chicago on Friday, March 30, 1849. These first weeks set a pattern for his pastoral activities as bishop: he would perform remarkable feats of travel within Illinois to minister to a Catholic population which was very poor and short of priests. He traveled by "river packet, stage, carriage, 'mud-wagon', and towards the end, occasionally by railroad", despite his poor health and Illinois' extremes of weather. He traveled by horseback when necessary, and slept on the road or in the mud-wagons. He said Mass for Germans in the state capitol, Springfield, and was shocked to learn that some of them had not had access to a priest for as much as four years.
