Can anyone supply information or refer me to a publication about Carry's time in Guthrie? I'm working on a play about that period of her life.

No, but if you're interested, I can share an amuseing incident which happened to her during one of her crusades in Pauls Valley.

You probably already know this, but the entire text of her autobiography is available online. See:

http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/NatUsea.html

And I for one would love to hear about her exploits in Pauls Valley.

My favorite story (perhaps apocryphal) about Carry is that once she stormed into a New York saloon owned by the great heavyweight fighter, John L. Sullivan. He is reported to have first hid and then meekly fled the premises.

--meursault

Carry Nation comes to the Valley
As a historian, I try to find ways to present history in an interesting manner, and this story, told as it really happened, is interesting because it involved Mrs. Carry Nation, a nationally known celebrity with an inclination for marching into saloons with an ax and demolishing barrels of beer and whiskey, who visited Pauls Valley. However, Mrs. Nation, though a true zealot for an end to the horrors of alcoholism, was not above taking advantage of an opportunity for creating enough havoc to get arrested for disturbing the peace—as long as a newspaper reporter was close enough to record the arrest for the next issue of daily news. And, as you read this story, you will see that Mrs. Nation’s agenda while at Pauls Valley was to create an unpleasant incident she could exploit and I don’t think she cared who else got exploited in the process.
The beginnings of the fiasco were innocuous and straight-forward. In January, 1906, Carry Nation and M. S. Allen requested permission of the town leaders to conduct a temperance crusade in Pauls Valley. They were accommodated and arrangements were made for a seminar to be held at the South Methodist Church beginning with an address by Carry Nation on Saturday, January 6th, and continuing through Monday, January 8th with multiple lectures and workshops led by various temperance leaders.
Well, the whole thing went swimmingly right up to Sunday morning and the moment a Negro from Guthrie, Oklahoma walked into the meeting and was offered a front row seat by Mr. Allen. It was shortly thereafter that Deputy United States Marshal Jim H. Webb received the dubious honor of protecting Miss Nation from the wrath of an angry mob she managed to goad into a killing frenzy when she and her assistant, Allen, attempted to “engraft their views of race equality.” According to the reported story, Mr. Allen and the Guthrie Negro, (who has never been identified by name,) were told by the Reverend W. W. Turner, that if the man intended to stay, he would have to sit in the back of the room, segregating him from the rest of the audience. Carry Nation, and Mr. Allen, ostensibly outraged by this blatant prejudice, stood up and demanded that all in the congregation who did not want the “colored brother” in the room, to get up and leave. So, the whole congregation got up and walked out, and the church superintendent, noticing the church was no longer being used, evicted Miss Nation. Carry, not fazed in the least, simply asked for the use of another church or the opera hall. Both requests were refused by citizens who were annoyed at her scandalous conduct to this point. At the negative response, Mrs. Nation moved her person to the street and began an impromptu temperance/abolitionist meeting on the front lawn, while Mr. Allen, began berating the town and its citizens in less than flattering terms.
Marshal Webb was summoned to mediate the grievance between the congregation and Miss Nation; the grievance between the church officials and Miss Nation; and, the grievance between the Negro, the congregation, and the church officials. Webb succeeded in getting everyone calmed down and the preaching moved off the church lawn. Then, as the afternoon wore on, and the news of Allen’s comments spread, hecklers began to arrive by the wagon load. Along about 3 p. m., between the preaching and the heckling, the neighborhood wherein the riot was forming got riled. A committee of citizens told Webb they were tired of the peace being disturbed and were fixing to join the party with ax handles and shotguns, so Webb went back down to mediate between the preachers and the preach-ees: the hecklers and the heck-lees; and the preachers, hecklers, and tired neighbors.
By the time Webb arrived, the hecklers had nabbed, and were fixing to lynch, Preacher Allen unless he left town immediately, and just to make sure Allen understood their request, he had been forcibly removed to the train depot. Webb, seeing the ugly humor of the crowd, took Allen and Nation by the arm, and escorted them into a nearby hotel where he advised Allen to stay in his room until he could disperse the mob. Arriving back in the lobby, Webb found Carry Nation ignoring his warning to curb her tongue, and holding forth before a growing mob which was getting more threatening by the minute. About then, Allen stumbled down stairs and joined Miss Nation to put in his two cents worth.
Now, Pauls Valley is in the Western United States, and in the West, one just does not accost women, no matter how mad they make you. On the other hand, a man, even a preacher, was expected to have the ability to defend himself and his principles against all comers. So, the mob grabbed Preacher Allen as soon as he hit the porch, and, as the saying goes: “handled him roughly.” Allen fell to the ground and pretended to be hurt, moaning piteously. Carry Nation, in a theatrical attempt to protect her fellow crusader, fell on top of Allen, who failed to catch her rather rotund body and she rolled off to tumble across the boardwalk to come to rest in the muddy street where she was quickly surrounded. At this point, Webb ignoring his desire to throttle the pair; waded into the fray. After cracking a few heads, the Marshall extracted Mr. Allen and hurried his battered person back into the hotel and safety. As he passed into the lobby, Carrie Nation once again started haranguing the crowd which had decided it had heard just about enough from the crusty little woman. Webb went back out on the hotel porch and dragged Carrie into the lobby just in time to prevent her from a fate similar to Mr. Allen’s. Then, Webb took Allen to his room and summoned a doctor, who pronounced Allen’s condition decidedly unserious. Faced with a situation, Webb did the prudent thing; he attempted to put both Allen and Nation aboard a train for elsewhere. However, Webb was unable to do spirit the pair out of town because the conductor, fearful that Mr. Allen, who was still complaining of his rough treatment by the mob, was badly injured, refused to allow Allen on the train; and, Nation refused to go without him.
Not knowing what the crowd might do, Webb put Carrie in her room with orders to not move and then took Allen to the Federal Court House where he remained in protective custody until Monday morning. Meanwhile, warrants were sworn against Allen and Nation by citizens of the Valley for having disturbed the peace. On Monday, Judge Pfeiffer listened patiently as Allen and Nation protested the warrants, and filed their own complaints asking for multiple warrants for assault. Arrests were made of all the men against whom Nation had complained; all of whom promptly plead guilty and paid their fines while telling the clerk to hurry because they didn’t want to miss the tarring and feathering of Allen rumored to still be scheduled. No one really knows what the mob had planned for Allen, but on Monday afternoon, Marshal Webb and Judge Pfeiffer received a visit from three prominent citizens who assured the court that unless the pair was on the next train out, a citizen’s mob was fully prepared to ride both out of town on a rail. Judge Pfeiffer concluded, based on the new information that the proper method of handing all the complaints would be to wait until the next term of the Grand Jury. Allen and Nation, also guided by the new information, saw the wisdom of this plan and made arrangements for Allen to leave on the next train, while Nation left the following morning for Shawnee. (By the way, the Negro from Guthrie, whose primary purpose seems to have been to act as the catalyst for staging this incident, disappeared before the riot started.)
Some months later, Carry Nation, as a way of showing appreciation to Deputy Webb, filed a complaint accusing the Marshal of slanderous language, forcing Webb to publish his side of the event, thus helping preserve the incident for history. Don’t you know Webb just loved his job?!!

Mike,

thanks for sharing a great story. Carry is lucky she wasn't lynched. Although she is known as favoring axe handles in her destructive sprees (for which she was arrested over thirty times), she employed a wide arsenal of weapons, including cue balls, iron bars, and a Crandall hammer. See:

http://www.kshs.org/cool2/hammer.htm

This is a vicious-looking hammer used by masons for for dressing stone. She also hated the Masons, and other fraternal organizations, suspecting (perhaps with some justice) that such were thinly-disguised drinking clubs.

--meursault

just waned to say if carrie ever was to have come in my saloon i would of shot her like the dog she was lol