The Conestoga River meanders for about sixty miles through the fertile farmlands of Lancaster County in southeastern Pennsylvania until it empties into the Susquehanna River. It originates in Berks County but most of its length is in Lancaster County. It enters the Susquehanna at Safe Harbor just below the Safe Harbor dam. Originally known as the Conestogoe or Conestogo, its name is derived from the Iroquoian word “Kanastoge” meaning “place of the immersed pole”.

In 2021, I wrote a book about the history of the Conestoga River. The book includes a center section of color photos depicting the Conestoga Watershed. The following gallery contains those photos.

How sweet it is, when gloaming tide
Concludes a sultry summer’s day,
By some cool water’s shaded side
With loved ones, young or old, to stray!
And where did any eye survey
A landscape matching scene on scene
Where Conestoga winds its way
Betwixt its trees and meadows green?
0, lovely Conestoga!

—James D. Law, 1903