page_title: Harveys Creek
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Harveys Creek / History
caption_attribution_description: English: An 1899 photograph of Harveys Creek near Tilbury Knob
context_page_description: Harveys Creek is a tributary of the Susquehanna River in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is approximately 14.5 miles long and flows through Harveys Lake, Lake Township, Lehman Township, Jackson Township, and Plymouth Township. The creek's watershed has an area of 46.3 square miles. The creek has four named tributaries, which are known as Bear Hollow Creek, Paint Spring Run, Pikes Creek, and East Fork Harveys Creek. The watershed is designated as a High-Quality Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery above Pikes Creek and as a Coldwater Fishery and a Migratory Fishery below it. The creek's source is Harveys Lake, the largest natural lake in Pennsylvania.
  Harveys Creek was used as a water supply as early as the beginning of the 1900s. A number of bridges have been constructed over the creek since the 1920s, and it has been dammed by the Bryant Pond Dam. It is possible to canoe on part of the creek. Rock formations consisting of sandstone and shale occur in the watershed.
context_section_description: The United States Board on Geographic Names made an official decision pertaining to Harveys Creek in 1950. Harveys Creek was entered into the Geographic Names Information System on August 2, 1979. Its identifier in the Geographic Names Information System is 1217352.
  Historically, the Great Warrior Path of the Native Americans crossed Harveys Creek near its mouth. The path ran from Sunbury to Athens. In December 1775, a battle known as Plunkett's Battle was fought along the Susquehanna River very close to the creek. This battle was one of the major battles in the Yankee-Pennamite Wars.
  The first schoolhouse in the lower part of Plymouth Township was built by Jameson Harvey near the mouth of Harveys Creek in 1834. The first mill in Lehman Township was built on the creek in 1837. In 1849, Johnathan Williams constructed a small mill on the creek. In 1869, a mining disaster occurred at the Avondale Mine just east of Harveys Creek. This event killed 108 people.
  In the early 1900s, communities in the watershed of Harveys Creek included Alderson, West Nanticoke, Shawanese, Pikes Creek, Laketon, and Ceases Mills. Their populations in 1921 were 386, 300, 150, 76, 73, and 55, respectively. The main industries in the watershed at that time were agriculture and summer resorts. As early as the 1890s, the Nanticoke Water Company (which was formed in 1885) pumped water from the creek via gravity lines. In the early 1900s, Harveys Creek and its tributary Pikes Creek were used as a water supply by the Spring Brook Water Supply Company. The creeks supplied Nanticoke, West Nanticoke, Plymouth, and Glen Lyon.
  In 2001, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission banned alcoholic beverages within 25 feet (7.6 m) of an 8.5-mile-stretch of Harveys Creek.
caption: Harveys Creek at Tilbury Knob in 1899
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