Anderson Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map , accessed August 8, 2011 tributary of the West Branch Susquehanna River in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, United States.Gertler, Edward. Keystone Canoeing, Seneca Press, 2004.

The upstream portion of the Anderson Creek Watershed is a PA DCNR Conservation Area, and falls from Rockton Mountain, along Interstate I-80 in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.Rockton Mountain is a popular recreation area for mountain biking and snowmobiling. Anderson Creek is classified as a Class II-III+ whitewater stream and defines the Eastern Continental Divide.See http://www.americanwhitewater.org./ Brown Springs, in the Moshannon State Forest, near Rockton, Pennsylvania, is a put-in for kayaking to the West Branch Susquehanna River at Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. The vertical drop of Anderson Creek is 1450 ft. to 1175 ft. "Anderson is a stream of considerable size, and in a region not so well supplied with raftable waters as this, might be well classed among rivers."Aldrich, History of Clearfield County, pp. 652, 1887.

Variant names According to the Geographic Names Information System, it has also been known historically as: Anderson's Creek

Great Shamokin Path

The Anderson Creek corridor is part of the Great Shamokin Path from the native village Shamokin, on the Susquehanna River, to Kittanning, Pennsylvania, on the Allegheny River. The path ascended the steep Anderson Creek Gorge several miles, then it turned west at what is now known as Chestnut Grove, Bloom Township, Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, and then on to The Big Spring near Luthersburg, Brady Township, Pennsylvania.

Bilger's Rocks Prehistoric Site The Anderson Creek corridor is the location of the Bilger's Rocks prehistoric McFate Culture site.Bilger’s Rocks lies within the heart of the Mid-Atlantic Highlands of the Appalachian Mountains. The area has a rich mix of animal and plant species. There are more than 6,200 caves in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands which shelter a less visible but fascinating habitat for cave crickets, albino spiders, blind salamanders and endangered bats. In 2000, the Nature Conservancy made the region one of its top conservation priorities because of its biological richness. See "Common ground: Highlands' program links environment, economy" at https://www.bayjournal.com/article.cfm?article=3211 During the latter portion of the Late Woodland Period (A.D. 1000–1580) groups belonging to the McFate culture inhabited portions of along the Allegheny Front in north central Pennsylvania. The site is in Bloom Township, Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, near the town of Grampian, Pennsylvania. The Bilger's Rocks Association owns and cares for the 175-acre tract and conducts educational programs for visitors.Rocks suddenly appear along the side of the road, big monoliths of stone with fissures and cracks, which seem to lead to paths and perhaps caves within the rocks. Just past this outcropping is a parking area, concession stand, some picnic tables, a playground and a pavilion. Jaime Kostelink and Jim Shaulis of DCNR's geological survey explored Bilger’s Rocks to determine if the site belongs on the Pennsylvania National Heritage Site list. There are 270 acres of rocks and rock outcroppings involved in the project. It was noted that the age of the rocks are between 275 to 300 million years old. The site was visited by Native Americans and immigrants for thousands of years and is the home of a rare fern that only grows in certain places in the country. One of the dreams of the Bilger’s Rocks Association is to build an education and classroom center. Designation as a Pennsylvania National Heritage Site requires that the site have scientific and educational value, scenic value, recreational value and historical value. “Bilger's Rocks may be designated as heritage site”, The Progress, July 06, 2007. See www.offroaders.com/album/clearfield/clear1099/bilgers.html. McFate sites have been located in Clearfield and Elk counties. A McFate site near Du Bois, Pennsylvania, the Hickory Kingdom "Kalgren site", was a stockaded fort on a projecting point of the Eastern Continental Divide and close to trail systems.See MacMinn, "Indian Forts in Hickory Kingdom" in Matclack, Indians of Clearfield County 10,000 BC to 1800 AD , Clearfield County Historical Society, 1990. The site is six miles northeast of the City of Du Bois in Sandy Township. See Myers, "An Examination of Late Prehistoric McFate Trail Locations" in PA Archaeology at www.pennsylvaniaarchaeology.com.

Early native peoples

Artifacts from the Curwensville, Pennsylvania, area demonstrate that various groups of Native Americans occupied the confluence of Anderson Creek and West Susquehanna Branch over a 10,000-year period."In the heart of Curwensville once stood a blacksmith shop owned by Paul Clover. Here he raised his family in the late 1700s. A daughter, Nancy, is the first white settler buried in this area. A large marker on a plot of ground next to the Curwensville VFW Post is her final resting place. She died in 1804. This historical burial ground on River Street near the VFW is believed to be a place where the Shawnees, a sub-tribe of the Leni-Lenape Indians of Algonquin stock who inhabited Clearfield County at that time, buried their dead. Clearfield County Comprehensive Plan, Chapter 4: History, Resource Inventory & Preservation Plan, 2006, p.2, 36. From AD 1000 to AD 1600, at least half a dozen groups lived in the vicinity of the Anderson Creek; the Clemson Island, Owasco, Shenks Ferry, Monongahela, and McFate or Black Minquas who were the last tribal entity to occupy the corridor. The Senecas from northern Pennsylvania wiped them out about 1650.

The French and Indian War

During the French and Indian War in 1757–1758, several hundred French and Indian troops traveled the Great Shamokin Path in an effort to destroy Fort Augusta, the main stronghold of the English at the junction of the east and west branches of the Susquehanna River. This army was gathered from the French posts at Duquesne, Kittanning, Venango and Le Boeuf and assembled at the mouth of Anderson Creek. Here, crude boats, rafts and bateau were constructed for passage down the Susquehanna River for the proposed attack. They dragged along with them two small brass cannon, but after reconnoitering found the distance too great for the guns to shoot from the hill opposite the fort. The defense at Fort Augusta was strong enough to resist attack by storming or by siege, and the attack was abandoned. A British defeat at Fort Augusta could have altered the history of the course of the French and Indian War.M.I. McCreight, Du Bois History, Memory Sketches of Du Bois, Pennsylvania: A History, (1939), p.69.

Moravian expeditions The Anderson Creek corridor is part of the Great Shamokin Path from the native village Shamokin, on the Susquehanna River, to Kittanning, Pennsylvania, on the Allegheny River. The Anderson Creek area was known by Native Americans as "the place where there is a mountain halfway on the other side". Native Americans recognized that Anderson Creek was the boundary between two river systems, the Susquehanna River and the Ohio River. For several decades in the early 18th century, the villages of Shamokin and Kittanning were two of the most important Native American villages in Pennsylvania. Perhaps the path's best known use was by Moravian Bishop John Ettwein and his group of some 200 Lenape and Mohican Christians in 1772. They traveled west along the path from their village of Friedenshütten (Cabins of Peace) near modern Wyalusing on the North Branch Susquehanna River to their new village of Friedensstadt on the Beaver River in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The private travel diary of the Rev. Johann Roth, a Moravian Church missionary among the Indians in the American East, describes his journey along the Anderson Creek corridor in the summer of 1772. In this account of his day-by-day progress, the Rev. Roth mentions a number of Delaware (or Lenni Lenape) Indian names for Pennsylvania. Roth mentions a night camp in a region which the Indians called "Wachtschunglelawi awossijaje." These are really three words, Wachtschiink leldwi awossijaje: wachtsch[u], 'a hill, mountain'; -iink, locative suffix, 'place where'; leldwi, 'halfway, in the middle'; awossijaje, 'over, over there, beyond, on the other side, behind.' This makes the three words signify, 'place where there is a mountain halfway on the other side'; or, rather, 'where there is a mountain halfway between the one side and the other.' That is, 'a divide' between two river systems; in this case, between the Susquehanna River and the Ohio River.This divide extends over Brady and Bell Twps., Clearfield County." Mahr, "How to Locate Indian Places on Modern Maps", The Ohio Journal of Science, May 1953, pp. 129, 134.

The Mead brothers and French Creek In his report to Governor Robert Dinwiddie, George Washington made reference to a beautiful rolling country, suitable for settlement, that he had found along the waters of French Creek. In 1788, brothers John and David Mead were ready to investigate Washington's story, and left Fort Augusta, now Sunbury, Pennsylvania, to explore the far west. They journeyed up mouth of Anderson Creek and turned at Coal Hill towards camp site and crossroads at The Big Spring. From there, they continued northwest on the Goschgoschink Path to the Venango Path and the waters of French Creek. On May 12, 1788, the Mead brothers founded Meadville, Pennsylvania, at the confluence of Cussewago Creek and French Creek.

War of 1812