The citizens of Jaysburg saw the attempts by Hepburn and Ross as a threat and they fought back. They believed that Jaysburg was much better suited to be the seat of government. It was already well established and held the higher and drier land. They argued that Williamsport would be frequently flooded and that the swamps would carry deadly diseases. The Jaysburgers sought to prove their point by sending an affidavit to the state capital stating that the land was prone to flooding and thereby unsuitable to be the county seat. A resident of Northumberland wrote an affidavit that he had once "tied up" his boat on a point of land on what is now East Third and State Streets in downtown Williamsport. He accessed it by way of a "gut" or an arm of the river that backflowed into the land. The affidavit was the proof that the Jaysburg interests needed to discredit Williamsport as a possible location for the county seat. Hepburn and Ross heard of this potentially financially devastating document and sought to have it destroyed before it reached the state government. It is supposed that men working for Hepburn and Ross met up with the messenger bearing the affidavit at the Russell Inn on the corner of East Third and Mulberry Streets in Williamsport and got him intoxicated. Then they are said to have cut open his saddle bags and made off with the documents. [http://www.usgennet.org/usa/pa/county/lycoming/history/Chapter-13.html]