ZANESVILLE, Ohio - Time is running out for historians trying to find and preserve Ohio homes that once served as stops on the Underground Railroad.

At least 150 of about 600 sites statewide already have been demolished, according to the Ohio Underground Railroad Society.

A foundation has bought the Zanesville home of Nelson T. Gant, a freed slave who moved to central Ohio and became a millionaire.

"He just was a unique man, and his house is one of the few still standing that was owned by a former slave," said Connie Quarles, historian for the Nelson T. Gant Foundation, which plans to restore the home and use it to spread his story.

Gant and his wife settled in Zanesville in 1847, three years after he was freed from a Virginia plantation. He helped escaped slaves travel north.

Local lore holds that Gant hid runaways in his vegetable wagon while taking them to secret "stations," or stops, on the Underground Railroad.

Crossing the Ohio River was a logical escape route, said John Mattox, curator of the Underground Railroad Museum in northern Belmont County.

"People in the community passed those stories on, and we should not lose this history."

Scant written records have complicated the task of identifying homes that sheltered runaways, but at least three Underground Railroad stops have been confirmed near Zanesville, about 50 miles east of Columbus.

Operators of the Putnam Underground Railroad Education Center - set to open next year -hope to identify more.