The rescue
of Charles Nalle, an escaped slave from Virginia, arrested in
Troy under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act, on Friday,
April 27th, 1860, was intensely exciting and courageously accomplished.
The indiscreet runaway having told the circumstances of his
flight from his master's plantation in October, 1858, a lawyer
living at Sand Lake transmitted the information to the owner
of the fugitive. The necessary papers for the arrest of Nalle,
who had been hired as a coachman by Uri Gilbert, were place
in the hands of J. L. Holmes, United States Deputy Marshal.
The latter "executed the warrant and conducted the hand-cuffed
man to the office of Miles Beach, United States Commissioner,
on the second floor of the Mutual Bank Building, on the north-east
corner of First and State streets. William Henry, a colored
man, a friend of the prisoner, having heard of his arrest, secured
the legal services of Martin I. Townsend, and went with him
to the office of the United States Commissioner. Finding that
a decision adverse to Nalle's freedom had been rendered, Martin
I. Townsend immediately drew the papers necessary to obtain
a writ of habeas corpus to take the fugitive before the Hon.
George Gould, a justice of the Supreme Court.
report
of the arrest attracted a crowd of interested citizens to the
State Street sidewalk, on the south side of the Mutual Bank
Building, - not a few being colored people. To
acquaint them with the proceedings, William Henry began relating
the particulars of the arrest and trial. He feelingly described
how Nalle had been handcuffed and brought there as a criminal,
not for a crime but for his poverty in not owning his own body,
and told how he had been condemned and placed in the hands of
an officer to be conveyed, shackled and distressed, to a southern
plantation where he would again be a defenseless victim of cruelty
and despair. He asked his excited hearers whether they were
willing to permit this innocent and intelligent man to be deprived
of his rightful freedom and the blessings of liberty which they
so highly enjoyed. Meanwhile the evidences of a hastily formed
purpose to rescue the prisoner rapidly multiplied. A number
of colored men pressed themselves into the thronged room where
Nalle was waiting the service of the papers for a writ of habeas
corpus. The State Street stairway and hall were filled with
the eager friends of the fugitive. An old colored woman took
a conspicuous position at the window overlooking State Street.
The police of the city under the command of Timothy Quinn, chief
of the force, were ordered to preserve the peace and to quell
any disturbance about the building. At four o'clock, in the
afternoon, the papers were served; Marshal Holmes being directed
to bring the body of the prisoner before Judge Gould at his
office, No. 39 Congress Street. While Chief Quinn was descending
the stairs closely followed by Nalle, coatless and bare-headed,
- Marshal Holmes walking on one side of him and Morgan S. Upham,
deputy sheriff, on the other, - the old colored woman at the
hall-window gave the preconcerted signal