A 200-year-old house believed to have been a way station on the Underground Railroad has been almost entirely knocked down, angering preservationists.

City officials said the owner, real estate agent Eric Stevens, had permits to renovate the home, not to demolish it. The city has stopped
work on the house, but critics say it is too little, too late.

\"We fear it\'s pretty much lost to us,\" said James Igoe, president of Preservation MASS. \"If nothing else, there has to be a lesson learned that things like this shouldn\'t be happening.\"

The red brick, Federal style home was once owned by John P. Coburn, a prominent black businessman and outspoken abolitionist, and may have sheltered escaped slaves in the 19th century.

It is not an official historic landmark, but it is part of the Black Heritage Trail, 14 structures through downtown Boston that are the
focus of a National Park Service tour.