Brookhaven is a small city in Lincoln County, Mississippi, southwest from the state capital of Jackson. The population was 12,520 at the 2010 U.S. Census. It is the county seat of Lincoln County. It was named after the Town of Brookhaven, New York, by founder Samuel Jayne in 1818.HistoryBrookhaven is located in what was formerly Choctaw Indian territory. The city was founded in 1818 by Samuel Jayne from New York, who named it after the Town of Brookhaven on Long Island.The railroad came though Brookhaven in 1858. It connected Brookhaven with New Orleans to the south and Memphis to the north.During the Civil War, Brookhaven was briefly occupied at noon on 29 April 1863 by a raiding party of Union cavalry under the command of Colonel Benjamin Grierson. The Union force burned public buildings and destroyed the railroad. This was rebuilt after the war.In 1936 Brookhaven was chosen to be the site of the Stahl-Urban garment plant.In 1955, Lamar Smith, a U.S. civil rights figure, black farmer, World War I veteran and an organizer of black voter registration, was shot to death mid-day on the lawn of the county courthouse in Brookhaven.