Carrie Destroys Her First Saloon - 1900
Carrie (Carry) Nation with hatchet.
Introduction
Carrie (aka Carry) Moore was unhappy in her first marriage to Charles Gloyd, an alcoholic. After his death she married a preacher, David Nation, but that marriage was also strained. She moved with Nation to Kansas which was a dry state (i.e.: one that had prohibited liquor). There she became leader of a local Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. While at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, she claimed to hear a voice that commanded her to go to Kiowa and promised to stand by her. Fearfully she obeyed, praying every step of the way. She also made her horse a test: if it stopped at its usual place, she would stop, but if it went forward on its own, she would go forward. The horse went forward. In Kiowa, the voice ordered her to take objects in her hands and smash saloons. In obedience to the voice, she wrapped rocks and bottles in paper to disguise them (she called them “smashers”) and entered Dobson’s Saloon on this day, June 7 1900 and said,
Quote
“Mr. Dobson, I told you last spring, when I held my county convention here, to close this place, and you didn’t do it. Now I have come with another remonstrance. Get out of the way. I don’t want to strike you, but I am going to break up this den of vice.”
Nation, Carry. The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, 1905.