Editing Ghent, Kentucky (section)

==History==
Ghent was settled at the end of eighteenth century and was first known as '''McCool's Creek Settlement'''.<ref>''Kentucky Atlas''. "[http://www.uky.edu/KentuckyAtlas/ky-ghent.html Ghent]".</ref> The town was laid out in 1814.<ref name=ren>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3Lac2FUSj_oC&pg=PA115 | title=Kentucky Place Names | publisher=University Press of Kentucky | year=1987 | access-date=28 April 2013 | author=Rennick, Robert M. | pages=115| isbn=0813126312 }}</ref> [[Henry Clay]] is alleged to have suggested the name,<ref name=ren/> derived from the city of [[Ghent]] (then part of the [[United Kingdom of the Netherlands|Netherlands]] and now part of [[Belgium]]), where the [[Treaty of Ghent (1814)|treaty]] ending the [[War of 1812]] was signed between the United States and the [[United Kingdom]] on [[Christmas Eve]], 1814.<ref>{{cite book|author=Lewis Collins|title=History of Kentucky|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5FQAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA118|year=1877|page=118|isbn=9780722249208}}</ref> Ghent's post office opened in 1816. On January 17, 1839, the [[Kentucky General Assembly]] formally established the city of Ghent and appointed Theodoric Fisher, Samuel Sanders Jr., James Knox, John C. Lindsey, and Richard Sarlls as its trustees.<ref>Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. December Session, 1838, p. 40.</ref>

In August 1864, in a skirmish during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] in what was known as the Gex Landing Incident, members of the African-American [[United States Colored Troops]] and the [[5th United States Colored Cavalry|United States Colored Cavalry]] engaged with [[Confederate States of America|CSA]] troops seeking to rescue local resident James Southard, a ferryman and Confederate sympathizer who had been arrested. USCT soldiers suffered an undetermined number of casualties.<ref>Tenkotte, Paul and Claypool, James. The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky, 2015, pages 396-398.</ref>