White Deer Hole Creek - Name

Name

Two etymologies have been suggested for White Deer Hole Creek's unusual name. According to Donehoo, it is a translation of the Lenape (or Delaware) Woap-achtu-woalhen (literally "white-deer digs a hole"), meaning "where the white deer digs". It is Opauchtooalin on the earliest map showing the creek (1755), while a 1759 map has both Opaghtanoten and its translation, "White Flint Creek". These are seen as corruptions of Woap-achtu-woalhen, and by 1770 (when the first settlers arrived) a map has "White Deer hole" (sic).

In 1870, 88-year-old John Farley gave a second explanation of the name. His family had settled on the banks of White Deer Hole Creek in 1787, and John's father John built a mill on the creek by 1789. The creek was named because "a white deer is said to have been killed at an early day in a low hole or pond of water that once existed where my father built his mill". The hole was "a large circular basin of low ground of some ten acres in extent....after my father's mill and dam were built the water of the dam overflowed and covered the most of the hollow basin of ground." The mill was just west of the mouth at the unincorporated village of Allenwood (then called Uniontown), now in Gregg Township in Union County.

The name "White Deer Hole Creek" is unique in the USGS Geographic Names Information System and on its maps of the United States. Although the whole creek is now referred to by this name, in 1870 the name applied only to the section from the confluence with Spring Creek east to its mouth, while the main branch west of Spring Creek was called "South Creek". Meginness used this name in 1892 and it appeared on a 1915 state map of Union County (but not the 1916 Lycoming County map). In 2009 the name "South Creek" has disappeared, but there is still a "South Creek Road" on the right bank of the creek in Gregg Township from near the mouth of Spring Creek west to the county line.

According to Meginness, the 17-mile (27 km) long and 8-mile (13 km) wide White Deer Hole Creek valley was just called "White Deer valley" by many in 1892, and this is still common. Confusion about the names arises since White Deer Creek is the next creek south of White Deer Hole Creek (they are on opposite sides of South White Deer Ridge). The Lenape name for White Deer Creek was Woap'-achtu-hanne (translated as "white-deer stream").

Spring Creek is the only named tributary of White Deer Hole Creek. Five unnamed tributaries flow through named features of South White Deer Ridge. Going upstream in order they are: Beartrap Hollow, First Gap, Second Gap, Third Gap, and Fourth Gap.