The Mount Pleasant Historic District, Mt. Pleasant, Ohio is nationally significant for its early and active association with the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements. Founded by Quakers fleeing the slave laws of North Carolina, this village erected the building now owned by the Ohio Historical Society which served the Friends Ohio Yearly Meeting during the period of significance. This building hosted the second convention of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. After transportation networks bypassed Mt. Pleasant and the Friends Seminary burned in 1875, the community lost its statewide leadership role for the Quaker community. The period of significance ends with the end of the Civil War in 1865. With the end of slavery, the Underground Railroad and abolitionist efforts were no longer a viable force.
The district is nationally significant for its collective support of such anti-slavery activities as the Underground Railroad, free schools for Negroes and Mulattos, and the Free Produce Movement. The village's strategic location less than twenty miles across the Ohio River from the Wheeling slave market and a population at mid-century that included twelve percent free African-Americans dispersed among white anti-slavery activists, made virtually the entire community a safe haven for fugitive slaves.
The district is also nationally significant for its association with early abolitionists Charles Osborn and Benjamin Lundy. Itinerant Quaker minister Charles Osborn moved his family from Tennessee to Mt. Pleasant in 1816, and began publication of the Philanthropist here on August 29, 1817. 34 Benjamin Lundy wrote a number of articles for the Philanthropist before moving to Mt. Pleasant early in 1821 after Osborn had sold the newspaper and moved to Indiana. Here Lundy published the Genius of Universal Emancipation from July 1821 until February 1822 before moving it to Tennessee and then to Baltimore, Maryland. He traveled extensively on behalf of the abolitionist cause and in 1829 attracted William Lloyd Garrison as his publishing partner.
The Mt. Pleasant Free Produce Company was organized in 1848, operated a store in Mt. Pleasant until 1857, and through the Ohio Yearly Meeting published a series of tracts on abstaining from the use of products created by slave labor.
Walking through the villages gives one the impression that it has much been passed by time. Many the homes have been well maintained and restored. The coordinates listed are for the Ohio Yearly Meeting House, the most significant building within the district.