Ghent Baptist Church

The Ghent Church, located in Carroll County, on the bank of the Ohio, eight miles above the mouth of the Kentucky River, is know as the migratory church, having changed its location four times.  This church had its origin in a "Union Meeting," held by the Baptists and Methodists at Port William, now called Carrollton, during the winter and spring of 1800, by William Hickman, and Joshua L. Morris, "on the doctrine and discipline of the Holy Scriptures."  Not adopting any Baptist Confession of Faith, when the Port William church applied for membership in the Salem association the following fall, its petition was rejected.  But after adopting the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, application was made to the Elkhorn Association in 1801, which was accepted, and the church with a membership of about one hundred was received into that body.  In 1804, the church united with the Long Run Association, and in 1814 the name was changed from Port William to McCool's Bottom, and it joined the Concord Association.  The last move made by the church was to the village of Ghent from which it derived its present name.  Joshua L. Morris was the first pastor and served about three years.  John Scott, who was born in Virginia, came to Kentucky in 1786 and accepted the call of the church in 1803.  A record of the Ghent Church says, "Brother Scott served the church more or less through life, without compensation, and gave to it the lot of ground, on which the house stands in the town of Ghent."  Lewis D. Alexander became pastor in 1837, and served twelve years.  The Ghent Church probably went into the organization of the White Run Association in 1900, to which it reported in 1947, three hundred and ten members, and J. T. Williams, pastor.

From Frank M. Masters A History of Baptists in Kentucky, 1953, published by the Kentucky Baptist Historical Society.