Before Jackson was formed, the town Old St. John's was started about 1.5 miles north of where Jackson is on June 2nd, 1856 by a Catholic colony of sixty Irish immigrants led by Father Trecy. The colony was one of the first towns started in Dakota County, and the first group of Catholic people to start a town together in Nebraska. When the rising Missouri River started to make it dangerous to live there around 1860, all of the residents of Old St. John's moved south to what is now called Jackson.