Quakers who fiercely opposed slavery began migrating to the territory northwest of the Ohio River after Congress prohibited slavery there in 1787, and those who brought slaves freed them upon arrival. Quaker Jesse Thomas moved with his family from North Carolina to this area in 1802, a year before Ohio became a free state, and that year he and Robert Carothers laid out “Jesse-Bob Town,” later renamed Mount Pleasant. The community grew rapidly from its first log structures to well-crafted brick buildings, and by 1821 it had a bank, school, market house, several stores, and nearby flour mills, sawmills, and a cloth factory. Quaker worship gatherings, known as meetings, expanded in the early 1800s into monthly meetings in the area, then quarterly meetings beginning in 1807 at Short Creek, and members traveled to Baltimore for the yearly meeting until the first Ohio Yearly Meeting was held at Short Creek in 1813. Although Mount Pleasant became known for its Quaker population, Presbyterians called Seceders were already settled there, and Robert Carothers was among those who sold land to arriving Quakers. Less than twenty miles from slave markets in Wheeling, West Virginia, the community reflected the Quaker testimony of equality, which held that each person had equal spiritual worth. That belief led most Quakers to reject slavery and also shaped their treatment of women, who played active roles in meetings, spoke freely, and held their own discussions during parts of meetings. These progressive views helped make the Quaker village of Salem the site of the Ohio Women’s Convention’s second meeting. Quaker life also followed a testimony of simplicity, expressed in plain architecture, furniture, and clothing, though not as a virtue of poverty, and Quakers also held unconventional views toward American Indians, often seeking to help them rather than regarding them as a threat.