Jacksonville was the original county seat of Telfair County. Land lot 340 in land district 8 was declared to be the permanent county seat in 1814. On November 25, 1815, the Georgia General Assembly declared that the new county seat be named Jacksonville after the hero of the recent Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson. At the time it was located in the center of the county, but when Coffee County was created from the part of Telfair County below the Ocmulgee River in 1854, the town became near the southwestern boundary of the county. In 1856, a referendum was called for the change of the county seat. The results are unknown, but the county seat remained at Jacksonville until after the American Civil War.