The Mississippi Legislature first appointed General Thomas Hinds, former Territorial Delegate William Lattimore, and James Patton—who would later serve as lieutenant governor under Governor George Poindexter—to identify the best location for the new capital. After surveying several possibilities, the commissioners recommended LeFleur's Bluff on the Pearl River.

The General Assembly—the name for Mississippi's Legislature at the time—accepted that recommendation. On November 28, 1821, it passed a supplemental act authorizing Hinds, Lattimore, and Peter A. VanDorn to establish the capital on the designated federal land grant and lay out the new town of Jackson.