Carrie Nation wielded ax against saloons

Carrie Nation was a terror to the saloon owners in Kansas, and many fled before her ax.
Carrie Amelia Moore was born on Nov. 25, 1846, in Garrard County, Ky., and married Dr. Charles Gloyd in 1867. Dr. Gloyd, a veteran of the Civil War was a drunkard, and died soon after their marriage.
Ten years later, in 1877, she again tied the knot – this time with David Nation, a lawyer, minister and editor. In 1889, the couple moved to Medicine Lodge, Kan.
Prior to their move, Mrs. Nation had founded the Women’s Christian Temperance Union organization. The platform of the organization was “the home against the saloon, a white life for two, and equal suffrage and total abstinence for all.”
In 1890, Carrie began praying in front of local saloons. Although a law on the books in Kansas banned liquor sales, it was not enforced. When her praying failed to achieve the results she wanted, Carrie changed her tactics.
She was 6-feet tall and strong. She began to enter saloons carrying a large stick, and damaged what she could – starting with windows and bottles. She used anything she could get her hands on, including rocks.
In 1900, Carrie began to use her famous hatchet. She was arrested 30 times in her career.
The Vandalia Union ran a Wichita, Kan., newspaper item on Jan. 24, 1901, under a headline declaring, “Mrs. Nation Again In Jail." The sub-headline added, "With Three Companions, She Made Another Destructive Raid On Wichita Saloons.”
Mrs. Nation was assisted by Mrs. Julia Evans, Mrs. Lucy Wilholt and Mrs. Lydia Muntz, all of the local W.C.T.U. organization.
“With hatchets concealed under their cloaks, they entered the saloon of James Burns on Douglas Avenue, and did not leave a complete piece of glass or a working slot machine in the place. All showcases, – both for liquor and cigars, as well as plate glass windows and doors – were broken into smithereens.”
The women then ran to John Herrig’s saloon, where they broke the plate glass windows and everything in the front room before he appeared with a revolver, which he held to Mrs. Nation’s head.
The Carey Hotel was next, and the police were there to greet them. The women were arrested and hauled off to the city jail, followed by 2,000 people, including Mrs. Evans’ little daughter, who pushed her way through the crowd, screaming and begging for her mother’s release.
Soon after, the four were taken to jail. The sheriff discharged them after they promised not to “wreck any more saloons until afternoon tomorrow.”
The women were released to a hero's welcome, were escorted to wagons and visited the sites of their earlier destruction, singing "Nearer My God To Thee." Upon reaching each saloon, they held prayer services.
The same year of the Wichita action, Carrie’s husband divorced her for desertion.
The "saloon smasher" visited Ramsey in June of 1906. A passenger on the Illinois Central Railroad, she poked her head out of a car window and spied a young man smoking a cigar. In her most severe tones, she said, “Young man, you are smoking up your brains.”
Being a polite young man, he refrained from anything worse than a request for her card, which Carrie gave him “with pleasure.” At the same time, she made a vicious grab for the offending weed, but the young man ducked his head.
The first Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Fayette County was begun in Hagarstown in 1886. Nearly every town in the county had their own arm of this organization, including Bingham, Brownstown, Farina, Hagerstown, LaClede, Ramsey, Shobonier, St. Elmo, St. James and Vandalia.
As time went on and Carrie’s actions became more bizarre, the W.C.T.U. pulled their support from her.
According to the Vandalia Historical Souvenir, the Vandalia corps started a library and reading room in the Fehren Building, visited the County Poor Farm on Flower Mission Day and decorated the graves of the departed on Decoration Day.  Their meetings were held twice monthly.
Carrie Amelia Nation died on June 9, 1911, in Leavenworth, Kan., her ax-wielding days done.
The movement she started helped bring on national prohibition in 1919, and overcrowded jails due to prohibition gave us the Vandalia State Farm.
 

Pictured above are officers of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Vandalia. They are, from left, Mrs. Lizzie Henninger, Mrs. Albert Dixon, Mrs. Maggie Dings, Mrs. Nellie Bartlet, Mrs. G.I. Deabler, Mrs. H.N. Clark, Mrs. Catherine Liget, Mrs. Martha Collins and Mrs. Nannie Hunter.