Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
"'I have now been absent two years almost, and have just got letters
from my friends in Auburn, urging me to come home. My father and mother
are old and in feeble health, and need my care and attention. I hope the
good people there will not allow them to suffer, and I do not believe
they will. But I do not see how I am to leave at present the very
important work to be done here. Among other duties which I have, is that
of looking after the hospital here for contrabands. Most of those coming
from the mainland are very destitute, almost naked. I am trying to find
places for those able to work, and provide for them as best I can, so as
to lighten the burden on the Government as much as possible, while at
the same time they learn to respect themselves by earning their own
living.
"'Remember me very kindly to Mrs. ---- and her daughters; also, if you
will, to my Boston friends, Mrs. C., Miss H., and especially to Mr. and
Mrs. George L. Stearns, to whom I am under great obligations for their
many kindnesses. I shall be sure to come and see you all if I live to go
North. If you write, direct your letter to the care of C.'"
In the Spring of 1860, Harriet Tubman was requested by Mr. Gerrit Smith
to go to Boston to attend a large Anti-Slavery meeting. On her way, she
stopped at Troy to visit a cousin, and while there, the colored people
were one day startled with the intelligence that a fugitive slave, by
the name of Charles Nalle, had been followed by his master (who was his
younger brother, and not one grain whiter than he), and that he was
already in the hands of the officers, and was to be taken back to the
South. The instant Harriet heard the news, she started for the office of
the U. S. Commissioner, scattering the tidings as she went. An excited
crowd were gathered about the office, through which Harriet forced her
way, and rushed up stairs to the door of the room where the fugitive was
detained. A wagon was already waiting before the door to carry off the
man, but the crowd was even then so great, and in such a state of
excitement, that the officers did not dare to bring the man down. On the
opposite side of the street stood the colored people, watching the
window where they could see Harriet's sun-bonnet, and feeling assured
that so long as she stood there, the fugitive was still in the office.
Time passed on, and he did not appear. "They've taken him out another
way, depend upon that," said some of the colored people. "No," replied
others, "there stands 'Moses' yet, and as long as she is there, he is
safe." Harriet, now seeing the necessity for a tremendous effort for his
rescue, sent out some little boys to cry _fire_. The bells rang, the
crowd increased, till the whole street was a dense mass of people. Again
and again the officers came out to try and clear the stairs, and make a
way to take their captive down; others were driven down, but Harriet
stood her ground, her head bent down, and her arms folded. "Come, old
woman, you must get out of this," said one of the officers; "I must have
the way cleared; if you can't get down alone, some one will help you."
Harriet, still putting on a greater appearance of decrepitude, twitched
away from him, and kept her place. Offers were made to buy Charles from
his master, who at first agreed to take twelve hundred dollars for him;
but when that was subscribed, he immediately raised the price to fifteen
hundred. The crowd grew more excited. A gentleman raised a window and
called out, "Two hundred dollars for his rescue, but not one cent to his
master!" This was responded to by a roar of satisfaction from the crowd
below. At length the officers appeared, and announced to the crowd that
if they would open a lane to the wagon, they would promise to bring the
man down the front way.
The lane was opened, and the man was brought out--a tall, handsome,
intelligent _white_ man, with his wrists manacled together, walking
between the U. S. Marshal and another officer, and behind him his
brother and his master, so like him that one could hardly be told from
the other. The moment they appeared, Harriet roused from her stooping
posture, threw up a window, and cried to her friends: "Here he
comes--take him!" and then darted down the stairs like a wild-cat. She
seized one officer and pulled him down, then another, and tore him away
from the man; and keeping her arms about the slave, she cried to her
friends: "Drag us out! Drag him to the river! Drown him! but don't let
them have him!" They were knocked down together, and while down she tore
off her sun-bonnet and tied it on the head of the fugitive. When he
rose, only his head could be seen, and amid the surging mass of people
the slave was no longer recognized, while the master appeared like the
slave. Again and again they were knocked down, the poor slave utterly
helpless, with his manacled wrists streaming with blood. Harriet's
outer clothes were torn from her, and even her stout shoes were all
pulled from her feet, yet she never relinquished her hold of the man,
till she had dragged him to the river, where he was tumbled into a boat,
Harriet following in a ferry-boat to the other side. But the telegraph
was ahead of them, and as soon as they landed he was seized and hurried
from her sight. After a time, some school children came hurrying along,
and to her anxious inquiries they answered, "He is up in that house, in
the third story." Harriet rushed up to the place. Some men were
attempting to make their way up the stairs. The officers were firing
down, and two men were lying on the stairs, who had been shot. Over
their bodies our heroine rushed, and with the help of others burst open
the door of the room, dragged out the fugitive, whom Harriet carried
down stairs in her arms. A gentleman who was riding by with a fine
horse, stopped to ask what the disturbance meant; and on hearing the
story, his sympathies seemed to be thoroughly aroused; he sprang from
his wagon, calling out, "That is a blood-horse, drive him till he
drops." The poor man was hurried in; some of his friends jumped in after
him, and drove at the most rapid rate to Schenectady.
This is the story Harriet told to the writer. By some persons it seemed
too wonderful for belief, and an attempt was made to corroborate it.
Rev. Henry Fowler, who was at the time at Saratoga, kindly volunteered
to go to Troy and ascertain the facts. His report was, that he had had a
long interview with Mr. Townsend, who acted during the trial as counsel
for the slave, that he had given him a "rich narration," which he would
write out the next week for this little book. But before he was to begin
his generous labor, and while engaged in some kind efforts for the
prisoners at Auburn, he was stricken down by the heat of the sun, and is
for a long time debarred from labor.
FUGITIVE SLAVE RESCUE IN TROY.
From the Troy Whig, April 28, 1859.
Yesterday afternoon, the streets of this city and West Troy were made
the scenes of unexampled excitement. For the first time since the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, an attempt was made here to carry its
provisions into execution, and the result was a terrific encounter
between the officers and the prisoner's friends, the triumph of mob
law, and the final rescue of the fugitive. Our city was thrown into a
grand state of turmoil, and for a time every other topic was forgotten,
to give place to this new excitement. People did not think last evening
to ask who was nominated at Charleston, or whether the news of the
Heenan and Sayers battle had arrived--everything was merged into the
fugitive slave case, of which it seems the end is not yet.
Charles Nalle, the fugitive, who was the cause of all this excitement,
was a slave on the plantation of B. W. Hansborough, in Culpepper County,
Virginia, till the 19th of October, 1858, when he made his escape, and
went to live in Columbia, Pennsylvania. A wife and five children are
residing there now. Not long since he came to Sandlake, in this county,
and resided in the family of Mr. Crosby until about three weeks ago.
Since that time, he has been employed as coachman by Uri Gilbert, Esq.,
of this city. He is about thirty years of age, tall, quite
light-complexioned, and good-looking. He is said to have been an
excellent and faithful servant.
At Sandlake, we understand that Nalle was often seen by one H. F.
Averill, formerly connected with one of the papers of this city, who
communicated with his reputed owner in Virginia, and gave the
information that led to a knowledge of the whereabouts of the fugitive.
Averill wrote letters for him, and thus obtained an acquaintance with
his history. Mr. Hansborough sent on an agent, Henry J. Wall, by whom
the necessary papers were got out to arrest the fugitive.
Yesterday morning about 11 o'clock, Charles Nalle was sent to procure
some bread for the family by whom he was employed. He failed to return.
At the baker's, he was arrested by Deputy United States Marshal J. W.
Holmes, and immediately taken before United States Commissioner Miles
Beach. The son of Mr. Gilbert, thinking it strange that he did not come
back, sent to the house of William Henry, on Division Street, where he
boarded, and his whereabouts was discovered.
The examination before Commissioner Beach was quite brief. The evidence
of Averill and the agent was taken, and the Commissioner decided to
remand Nalle to Virginia. The necessary papers were made out and given
to the Marshal.
By this time it was two o'clock, and the fact began to be noised abroad
that there was a fugitive slave in Mr. Beach's office, corner of State
and first Streets. People in knots of ten or twelve collected near the
entrance, looking at Nalle, who could be seen at an upper window.
William Henry, a colored man, with whom Nalle boarded, commenced talking
from the curb-stone in a loud voice to the crowd. He uttered such
sentences as, "There is a fugitive slave in that office--pretty soon you
will see him come forth. He is going to be taken down South, and you
will have a chance to see him. He is to be taken to the depot, to go to
Virginia in the first train. Keep watch of those stairs, and you will
have a sight." A number of women kept shouting, crying, and by loud
appeals excited the colored persons assembled.
Still the crowd grew in numbers. Wagons halted in front of the locality,
and were soon piled with spectators. An alarm of fire was sounded, and
hose carriages dashed through the ranks of men, women, and boys; but
they closed again, and kept looking with expectant eyes at the window
where the negro was visible. Meanwhile, angry discussions commenced.
Some persons agitated a rescue, and others favored law and order. Mr.
Brockway, a lawyer, had his coat torn for expressing his sentiments, and
other melees kept the interest alive.
All at once there was a wild hulloa, and every eye was turned up to see
the legs and part of the body of the prisoner protruding from the
second-story window, at which he was endeavoring to escape. Then arose a
shout! "Drop him!" "Catch him!" "Hurrah!" But the attempt was a
fruitless one, for somebody in the office pulled Nalle back again, amid
the shouts of a hundred pair of lungs. The crowd at this time numbered
nearly a thousand persons. Many of them were black, and a good share
were of the female sex. They blocked up State Street from First Street
to the alley, and kept surging to and fro.
Martin I. Townsend, Esq., who acted as counsel for the fugitive, did not
arrive in the Commissioner's office until a decision had been rendered.
He immediately went before Judge Gould, of the Supreme Court, and
procured a writ of habeas corpus in the usual form, _returnable_
immediately. This was given Deputy Sheriff Nathaniel Upham, who at once