French Creek (Allegheny River)

French Creek (also known as the Venango River) is a tributary of the Allegheny River in northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York in the United States.

Name

The stream has been sometimes called a river and sometimes a creek. It is thought that the stream's Seneca name, in nungash, was modified over time to Venango. The phrase in nungash may have derived from Onenga, the Seneca word for mink but may have stemmed from Winingus, the Delaware word for the same animal. Interpretations of Venango have included "crooked", and the Seneca chief Cornplanter suggested that in nungash referred to a particular carving on a tree along the stream.Venango was likewise the name of a native settlement at the creek's mouth, later the site of Franklin, Pennsylvania.

In the 18th century, the stream was an important link between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. The French built Fort Presque Isle and Fort Le Boeuf to control the portage from the stream's headwaters to Lake Erie. They called the stream Rivière aux Boeufs (Cattle River) because bison in the vicinity reminded them of French cattle. In 1753, George Washington, a British subject at the time, was sent to deliver a message to Fort Le Boeuf asking the French to leave the region. Washington called the stream French Creek rather than Beef Creek (another common rendering of Rivière aux Boeufs), and his version prevailed.

French Creek

French Creek may refer to:

Communities

Bodies of water

Other

See also

French Creek (British Columbia)

French Creek is a creek located in the Big Bend Country region of British Columbia. The creek is a northern tributary of the Goldstream River which flows into the Columbia River from the east, a little over 50 miles north of Revelstoke. This creek has been mined and has produced about $800,000 in gold. French creek has been mined by Europeans and Chinese.

References

French Creek (Schuylkill River)

French Creek, once known as Saukanac Creek, is a 22.6-mile-long (36.4 km) tributary of the Schuylkill River in Berks and Chester counties, Pennsylvania in the United States. The water course was also known as the Vincent River, after Sir Mathias Vincent, who purchased land (now West and East Vincent Townships) along it in Chester County in 1686.

French Creek travels through the Hopewell Big Woods, including French Creek State Park, and joins the Schuylkill in Phoenixville. French Creek is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.

The French Creek valley was an important early industrial region, particularly iron, in the United States. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site along French Creek interprets this history. The Phoenix Iron Works site in Phoenixville, an active iron and steel producer from colonial times until the late 20th century, sits astride the creek just before it joins the Schuylkill.

In 1994, the Green Valleys Association (GVA) with its 38 co-petitioners filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board for the upgrade of the French Creek watershed from a designation of High Quality (HQ) to Exceptional Value (EV). In September 1998, the French Creek watershed west of PA 100 and the Birch Run watershed were granted this upgrade. In 2003, Green Valleys and its 48 co-petitioners successfully filed a petition to obtain an upgrade from HQ to EV of the lower reaches of French Creek, from the Kennedy Covered Bridge in East Vincent and East Pikeland Townships upstream to PA 100 in South Coventry Township as well as the entire Beaver Run. This petition was accepted by the Environmental Quality Board in February 2004 and is currently being reviewed.