In 1843, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society sent speakers to New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana to hold "One Hundred Conventions" on abolition. Because the speakers often encountered citizens with deeply held racist ideas, they were frequent targets of violence. On September 16, a crowd gathered near here to hear George Bradburn, William A. White, and Frederick Douglass. During Bradburn's speech, more than thirty men marched in armed with stones and brickbats and demanded that the speakers leave. In the assault that followed, White, Douglass, and others were injured. Local supporters defended them and carried them to safety. Douglass spoke the next day at a nearby Friends meetinghouse without incident, and the rioters went unpunished.