The Stirring Escape of Charles Nallie Across the Hudson River

An Albany dispatch to the New York Sun states the following:

The finding of an old broken pair of slave shackles in the rubbish brought up from the bottom of the [Hudson] river, near West Troy [Albany County, NY], has recalled a stirring incident of ante-bellum times.

The shackles were broken from the wrists of one Charles NALLIE, a fugitive slave, who had run away from his master, Blucher W. HANSBROUGH of Culpeper, Va., in October, 1858. Nallie slowly worked his way north and finally reached Troy [Rensselaer County, NY], where he worked as a coachman for Uri GILBERT.

He had, prior to this, worked for a farmer in Sand Lake [Rensselaer County, NY], and while there foolishly told his story to a lawyer named Horace F. AVERILL. This lawyer wrote to Nallie's former master, informing him of the fugitive's whereabouts, and on Friday, April 27, 1860, Nallie was arrested under the fugitive-slave law.

The arrest caused great excitement in Troy, where the abolition sentiment ran high. Martin L. TOWNSEND, who is today [1890] a member of the Constitutional Commission, was secured as counsel for the slave, and a writ of habeas corpus was obtained from Judge GOULD. The fugitive was taken from the hands of the police officers and was surrounded by a crowd of citizens, who easily secured possession of him and hurried him toward the river.

Nallie, shackled as he was, sprang into the river and swam [across it] to West Troy, where friends broke the irons and threw them into the river, where they have ever since lain.

Subsequently, after being concealed for a long time, Nallie was taken to Watervliet [Albany County, NY] and made good his escape.

He was never recaptured.

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Debby Masterson