According to family tradition, as Pennington traveled in the Northwest Territory in the late 1790s Pennington met Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, and Thomas Worthington, a fellow Virginian who became governor of Ohio. Pennington's contact with these men, along with the success of the anti-slavery movement in Ohio, reportedly influenced his decision to become an anti-slavery activist. On one of his trips to Vincennes, the territorial capital, Pennington encountered William Henry Harrison, who became the pro-slavery governor of the Indiana Territory in 1801.
Pennington
William Henry Harrison