Mount Pleasant

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How Mount Pleasant began

Mount Pleasant was settled in 1796 by Robert Carothers and Jesse Thomas and laid out as a village in 1804, but its lasting significance comes from the antislavery Quaker community that grew there after Pennsylvania Friend Nathan Updegraff arrived in 1802. In 1817 Quaker Charles Osborn founded The Philanthropist in the village, believed to be the first newspaper in the United States dedicated to abolishing slavery, and beginning in 1821 Benjamin Lundy published his own abolitionist paper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, from Mount Pleasant before moving it to Baltimore; his house is a National Historic Landmark. Nathan's son David Updegraff served as an Underground Railroad conductor. Most of the village today forms the Mount Pleasant Historic District, itself a National Historic Landmark, and its population, which peaked at 755 in 1850, has declined to 394 by the 2020 census.

Settled 1796 (Robert Carothers and Jesse Thomas), platted 1804, incorporated date not found in sources reviewed, by Robert Carothers and Jesse Thomas.

Where the name comes from

Named for its scenic landscape; an early alternative name, Jesse-Bobtown, never gained lasting use.

Before the town

No source reviewed names a specific Native American village, mound or documented encounter within Mount Pleasant. The village's founders settled the land in 1796, the year after the Treaty of Greenville ended the Northwest Indian War and opened the region to settlement.

Nations recorded here: Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, Wyandot.

Timeline

1. 1796 — Robert Carothers and Jesse Thomas settle the land on which Mount Pleasant is built.
2. 1802 — Pennsylvania Quaker Nathan Updegraff arrives, becoming a leading figure of the Short Creek Monthly Meeting of Friends.
3. 1804 — Carothers and Thomas lay out the village.
4. 1814 — The Friends Meetinghouse is built at 298 Market Street; it later becomes part of the Mount Pleasant Historic District.
5. 1817 — Quaker Charles Osborn founds The Philanthropist in Mount Pleasant, believed to be the first newspaper in the United States dedicated to the abolition of slavery.
6. 1821 — Benjamin Lundy begins publishing The Genius of Universal Emancipation from Mount Pleasant before relocating it to Baltimore.
7. 1850 — Village population peaks at 755.
8. 1858 — David Brainard Updegraff, Quaker minister and grandson of Nathan Updegraff, builds the brick Updegraff House on Union Street.

Stories

The first abolitionist newspaper in the country

In 1817, a Quaker printer named Charles Osborn set up shop in the small village of Mount Pleasant and began publishing The Philanthropist, a paper historians credit as the first in the United States devoted specifically to the abolition of slavery -- appearing more than a decade before William Lloyd Garrison's better-known Liberator. Osborn's example did not end with his own paper: beginning in 1821, fellow abolitionist Benjamin Lundy published his own paper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, from the same small village before eventually moving it to Baltimore and, later, briefly employing a young Garrison himself as an assistant editor. Nathan Updegraff's son David carried the village's antislavery commitment from print into direct action, serving as an Underground Railroad conductor who helped freedom seekers move safely through the area. That density of abolitionist activity in one small Quaker village is why most of Mount Pleasant survives today as a National Historic Landmark district, its brick and stone buildings preserved as much for what was written and organized inside them as for their architecture.

Photographs

Local history sources: en.wikipedia.org · ohiogenealogyexpress.com · commons.wikimedia.org · commons.wikimedia.org

Every historic place in Jefferson County on the full map

Groundwater wells (1 wells) The water here

• Mount Pleasant100% of residentsGroundwater wells (1 wells)

Fire and EMS stations (1)

Police stations (1)

Source: Ohio EPA eDocument portal (edocpub.epa.ohio.gov), indexed 2026-10-14. Facilities are placed on the map from Ohio EPA's own map layers, EPA's Facility Registry, coordinates written in the filings, or a geocoded street address. A permit filed under a private person's name (most are household septic systems) is counted but never named, placed or linked; licenses for individual workers and open-burning notices are left out entirely.

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