On April 1, 1858, Robert Stump of Virginia, Peter Heck, a bounty hunter from Uniontown, and Frost, a Deputy US Marshal for the Western District of Pennsylvania, crossed the old covered bridge into Blairsville searching for Richard Newman, who had escaped enslavement in "Old Virginia" nearly six years earlier. They intended to capture Newman and return him to slavery. As they climbed toward the center of town, Stump spotted Newman standing in the doorway of Mulholland's store, and because Heck would not be recognized, he was assigned to seize him. The three men subdued Newman as he fought them, but an angry crowd of Blairsville citizens gathered, surrounded the kidnappers, and freed him. Calls to lynch the slave catchers led a nervous Stump to fire his pistol into the crowd, and during the melee Newman was taken to safety and then sent north along the Underground Railroad.