Males had a median income of $26,163 versus $22,688 for females. The per capita income for the township was $15,066. About 8.8% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 14.6% of those under age 18 and 11.7% of those age 65 or over. Initial hunters and settlers in the territory that includes present-day Jenner Township were Mingo, also known as the Seneca, one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois. The land was ceded by the Iroquois Six Nations officially by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1768 to Penn family as proprietors of Pennsylvania province. Early European traders crossed Jenner Township as early as 1750, when Christopher Gist documented his brief time there in his travel diary. Gist is said to have named Quemahoning Creek, which drains much of Jenner Township. The Northern Trail, an established Indian trail, crossed the territory from east to west, intersecting Quemahoning Creek at Kickenapaulin's Town, a rather substantial Indian settlement, the site of which now lies under the waters of the Quemahoning Reservoir, just outside the township. In August 1758, the Northern Trail was improved, initially for the British military use, and renamed the Forbes Trail, later known as the Pennsylvania Road, the Lincoln Highway, and now U.S. Route 30. With the building of the Forbes Road to Fort Ligonier and, later, onward to Fort Pitt, present-day Pittsburgh, European settlement began in earnest. Jenner Township was formed out of the western part of Quemahoning Township in 1811. The township was named in honor of Dr. Edward Jenner, discoverer of the smallpox vaccine. Early Jenner Township settlers were primarily German and English speakers engaged in agriculture. Pennsylvania Dutch was still spoken in rural parts of the township until the 1960s. Jenner Crossroads, the township's first substantial European settlement, grew near a grist mill and tavern stop established about 1800 along the Pennsylvania Road. Samuel Steel built a sawmill at Jenner Crossroads in 1817; John Shopwood opened a hotel in 1825, and Samuel Elder opened the first store in 1836 Other early industry in the township included a sawmill on Quemahoning Creek built about 1813 by Moses Fream and a small woolen mill, built in 1817 by William Dalley, enlarged by Owen and William Morgan later into a small settlement known as Morgantown.