Brookhaven is a survivor of small towns. Historically similar to those which resulted in the disappearance of formerly flourishing Lincoln County villages and towns such as Beauregard, Bogue Chitto, Cold Springs, Hartman, Nola, Norfield, and Wellman, for more than a century Brookhaven has achieved a fairly steady, gentle prosperity for reasons other than its designation as the seat of Lincoln County government.
A part of West Florida governed by England from 1763 to 1779 and then by Spain until ceded to the United States by the Pinckney Treaty of 1795, it was included in the Territory or Mississippi when created in 1798 by the U. S. Congress, which accorded statehood to the area presently named “Mississippi” in 1817.
Situated amid the steep hills and dales covered with dense forests of towering virgin longleaf yellow pines, interspersed occasionally with boggy swamps and stretches of rich bottom land and grassy prairie, political dominion meant next to nothing to the relatively thin population of Choctaw Indians or their use of the land as hunting grounds and for food crop patches until 1805 when, under the Treaty of Mount Dexter, the Choctaw Nation forever yielded their Indians’ federally recognized possessory right to the soil and its usufruct to the federal government.
There began a gradual settlement for purposes of the area embraced since 1870 by Lincoln County, but then comprising parts of Lawrence and others of the original 14 Mississippi counties.
Until the late 1850’s, along the line from New Orleans to Jackson, which would ultimately be the center of the Illinois Central main line railroad right of way, there was neither village nor town worthy of the name. By and large, the settlers and their retainers came from Georgia, the Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee where their families had been established for many years previous. They were Protestants of English, Scotch-Irish, and African heritage.
At completion of the railroad in 1858 the town was “a mere hamlet with a dozen wooden houses”. Included was the first place of worship built in 1858.
Between railroad completion and Mississippi’s 1861 secession from the Union, not a universally popular action in the “Piney Woods” section of the state which included Brookhaven, the potential provided by rail access to major market points drew the attention of far sighted individuals with both commercial and cultural vision and there were laid the foundations for timber products manufacture and education at the college level which invigorated the community for many years.