Jacksonboro was established as the county seat of Screven County under an act of the General Assembly on Feb. 1, 1797. James H. Rutherford, Francis Jones, Martin Martin, Anthony Bonnell, Sr., and Stephen Pearce were appointed commissioners to purchase or otherwise procure not less than five acres nor more than fifty acres and to let the building of a courthouse and jail. The town centered on fifty acres purchased from Solomon Gross on April 29th, 1797. It was officially incorporated as The Town of Jacksonborough by the General Assembly on Feb. 16, 1799, and was named for General James Jackson, then governor of Georgia. For fifty years it was a thriving business center for a large rural area of Georgia. It remained the county seat until Dec. 14, 1847, when the seat of government was moved to Sylvania, and Jacksonboro then rapidly became one of the many ghost towns of Georgia's early history.