Halifax Township was officially created in March 1804. Its original territory included the green area shown on the map above. Halifax Township was later diminished by the creation of Jackson Township from it in 1823. Later Jackson Township was diminished by the creation of Jefferson Township in 1842 and Wayne Township in 1878. Halifax Township today consists of the area labeled within the black boundary lines and the Susquehanna River.
In 1875, Halifax Borough became an independently governed area via incorporation.
The following explanation is from William Henry Egle‘s History of the Counties of Dauphin and Lebanon of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, published in Philadelphia in 1883 by Everts and Peck:
At December sessions, 1803, the court issued an order to certain commissioners to view and lay out a new township out of parts of Upper Paxtang [Paxton] and Middle Paxtang [Paxton] Townships, who reported the following boundaries of the new township to wit:
“Beginning on the west side of the Susquehanna River, opposite the end of Peter’s Mountain; thence along the top of Peter’s Mountain to the Berks and Dauphin County line; thence along said line to Wiconisco Mountain; thence along the top of said mountain to the Susquehanna River, and across said river and thence to the place of beginning.”
This report was confirmed by the court at their March sessions, A.D. 1804, and it was ordered that the new township be called Halifax [Township]. The mountain called “Wiconisco” in the above report is the same usually called Berry’s Mountain.
The history of the township centres about Fort Halifax and the town of Halifax….