Evitts Creek is a tributary stream of the North Branch Potomac River in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania and Maryland. The confluence of Evitts Creek and the North Branch Potomac River is located 2 miles (3 km) east of Cumberland, Maryland.
Evitts Creek is 30.2 miles (48.6 km) long. It flows from southwestern Pennsylvania through western Maryland. The stream rises in central Bedford County, Pennsylvania, and flows southwest between the ridges of Evitts Mountain and Wills Mountain, through the Lake Koon and Lake Gordon reservoirs and into the North Branch Potomac River southeast of Cumberland at 39°55'N 78°36'W.
Evitts Creek and Evitts Mountain are named in honor of an early pioneer in Allegany County, Maryland, who in the 1780s decided to contemplate his bachelorhood from the isolated top of what is today called Evitts Mountain, far from the distractions of society. At the top of the over 2,000-foot-high (610 m) Evitts Mountain ridge is what is supposedly his old homestead, from which he would return by the same route every day hiking a steep 3.5-mile (5.6 km) trail, today called Evitts Homestead Trail. Rocky Gap Run, a tributary of Evitts Creek, runs past the eastern base of Evitts Mountain and into what is today Rocky Gap State Park.
The water supply of Cumberland is provided by Evitts Creek.
Brook trout are native to Evitts Creek as well as the surrounding area, but current populations are limited to nonexistent. Trout are stocked annually in both Pennsylvania and Maryland. Bass, catfish, and bluegill also inhabit the creek.
Several historical incidents have been recorded along Evitts Creek:
- In colonial days, Frazier's Plantation lay just upstream from Evitts Creek. Jane Frazier was carried west by Indians in 1755, escaping and making her way back a year later.
- At Evitts Creek, Union forces turned back Confederate cavalry in the Battle of Folck's Mill in August 1864, at the conclusion of the raid that burned Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. From here the Confederates retreated to Oldtown, Maryland, and crossed the river after another skirmish.
Famous quotes containing the words creek, branch and/or potomac:
“The only law was that enforced by the Creek Lighthorsemen and the U.S. deputy marshals who paid rare and brief visits; or the “two volumes of common law” that every man carried strapped to his thighs.”
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. relief program (1935-1943)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“While I am in favor of the Government promptly enforcing the laws for the present, defending the forts and collecting the revenue, I am not in favor of a war policy with a view to the conquest of any of the slave States; except such as are needed to give us a good boundary. If Maryland attempts to go off, suppress her in order to save the Potomac and the District of Columbia. Cut a piece off of western Virginia and keep Missouri and all the Territories.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)