In 1798, several prospectors traveled north from North Carolina in search of new lands, including the Quaker prospectors John Mast, Jr., Martin Davenport, David Hoover, and Benjamin Iddings of Tennessee, and after examining both sides of the Stillwater River they returned south to prepare their families for the journey. When they departed, a wagon train of sixty-four relatives and abolitionists set out, with the first group arriving in September 1801, a second in 1802, and a third group from Georgia in 1805. Joseph and Rachel (McCool) Evans founded the Village of West Milton, and shortly after arriving Joseph Evans decided that Section 21 would be ideal for a village; the first sale of sixty-two lots took place in 1807. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, required church members to help their fellow man, and as they built their homes many made places for enslaved people to hide, so that those who reached this area could find a safe place to stay. A group of runaway slaves from South Carolina found shelter for several days at the home of Marmaduke Coate while on their way to Canada, and one of them, an enslaved woman named Flossie, mysteriously found her way back to the Coate home after the Civil War dressed in fine clothes.