American Hero Nelson Gant – Ex-enslaved, abolitionist, businessman, conductor on the Underground Railroad!

Gant was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧 into slavery on May 10, 1821, in Loudoun County, Virginia. Gant spent his time as a slave as his master’s body servant.In September 1845, upon his owner’s death, Gant received his freedom. He spent the next year in Virginia, selling firewood.

He hoped to earn enough money to purchase his wife, Anna Marie Hughes, who was a slave in Virginia. Before earning enough money to secure his wife’s freedom, Gant came to Zanesville, Ohio. Local abolitionists, especially Quakers, helped Gant raise money to purchase his wife. Finally, in February 1847, Gant secured his wife’s freedom from her owner in Leesburg, Virginia.

The reunited Gants settled in Zanesville. Nelson Gant eventually owned three hundred acres of land. Gant earned a living as a farmer, but he also owned a saltlick and a coal mine.The Gants enrolled their 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥ren in Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. The Gants also actively assisted fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. Nelson Gant eventually sold twenty acres of land to the Townsend Brick Company, which turned the land into a public park. This property became Gant Park, and it is now the home of Municipal Stadium in Zanesville.