Jackson Township was created in 1828 in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, from Halifax Township. After its creation, two townships were separated from territory originally part of it. Jefferson Township was created in 1842 and Wayne Township was created in 1878.
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:
On 23 August 1828 and order was issued by the Court of Quarter Sessions to three commissioners to view and report upon the propriety of dividing the township of Halifax [Township] according to the prayer of inhabitants of the east end of said township, asking for a division, and that the new township might be called Jackson [Township] previously presented to said court. The commissioners reported that in their opinion a division of said township was necessary and proper and that they had run and marked a division line follows, to wit:
“Beginning at a chestnut-oak on the top of Peter’s Mountain, in Winn’s Gap, on the line dividing Halifax and Middle Paxton Townships; thence across Powell’s Valley and Armstrong’s Valley, north 3 1/2 degreeswest 6 miles and 280 perches to a hickory on the line between Upper Paxtang [Paxton] and Halifax Townships, on Berry’s Mountain, at a small curve in said mountain about three-quarters of a mile west of Woodside’s Gap.”
This report was confirmed by the court at November sessions, 1828. (see Read Docket A. page 37.)
It was thus named for the then President of the United States, Gen. Andrew Jackson, and as thus established was diminished by the erection of Jefferson [Township] in 1842…. Armstrong’s Creek rises in this township, and flowing southwest empties into the Susquehanna [River] above Halifax.