Toby Run is a tributary of the

Susquehanna River The Susquehanna River (; Lenape: Siskëwahane) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, overlapping between the lower Northeast and the Upland South. At long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the ...

Montour County, Pennsylvania Montour County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in Northeastern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,136. Its county seat is Danville. The county is named for Andrew Montour, a prominent Mét ...

. It is approximately long and is entirely in Mahoning Township. The stream's watershed has an area of . There are ravines known as the Toby Run Ravines in the vicinity of the stream. They are designated as a "Locally Significant" site in the Montour County Natural Areas Inventory. Additionally, the

Danville State Hospital Danville State Hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania is a mental health facility operated by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. It was Pennsylvania's third public facility to house the mentally ill and disabled. History Danville State Ho ...

is located in the area of the stream.

Course

Toby Run begins in hills in southern Mahoning Township. It flows southwest and then west or northwest for a short distance before making a sharp turn southwest. The stream then passes by a

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

and a

state hospital The State Hospital (also known as Carstairs Hospital, or simply Carstairs) is a psychiatric hospital near the village of Carstairs Junction, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland. It provides care and treatment in conditions of high security for arou ...

and leaves the hills that it started in. Shortly after this, it reaches its confluence with the Susquehanna River near the southern edge of Mahoning Township. Toby Run joins the Susquehanna River upstream of its mouth.

Geography and geology

Toby Run flows through a group of

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.Cooper Township. The ravines are relatively narrow. There is also a

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ...

in the watershed of the stream. The elevation of Toby Run near its mouth is above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

Watershed

The watershed of Toby Run has an area of . Toby Run is close to Danville.

History

Historically, there was a community known as Toby Town in the vicinity of Toby Run and a nearby

insane asylum The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry ...

. It was named after a "large and powerful" Native American known as Toby. It is unknown if this community was near the stream's mouth or on a nearby ridge. The grounds of the

is in the watershed of Toby Run. In the late 1800s, the

gas works A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space. Early gasworks Coal ...

of the State Lunatic Asylum were at the mouth of the stream. In 1913, the stream was proposed for use as a secondary water supply for the Danville State Hospital. A

pumping station Pumping stations, also called pumphouses in situations such as drilled wells and drinking water, are facilities containing pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are used for a variety of infrastructure systems, ...

was also located near the stream.

Biology

Most of the plants in the Toby Run ravines are hemlock. However, the vegetation in the ravines, which includes forests, is described as "interesting and diverse" in the Montour County Natural Areas Inventory. Trees such as

tulip poplar ''Liriodendron tulipifera''—known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tulipwood, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, fiddletree, and yellow-poplar—is the North American representative of the two-species genus ''Liriodendron'' (the other ...

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engl ...

, and

sugar maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the prima ...

are also present in the area. The

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an ...

in the area consists of hemlock and northern

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes fro ...

trees. Non-native species such as

Norway maple ''Acer platanoides'', commonly known as the Norway maple, is a species of maple native to eastern and central Europe and western Asia, from Spain east to Russia, north to southern Scandinavia and southeast to northern Iran. It was introduced to ...

multiflora rose ''Rosa multiflora'' — (syn. ''Rosa polyantha'') is a species of rose known commonly as multiflora rose, baby rose, Japanese rose, many-flowered rose, seven-sisters rose, Eijitsu rose and rambler rose. It is native to eastern Asia, in China, ...

garlic mustard ''Alliaria petiolata'', or garlic mustard, is a Biennial plant, biennial flowering plant in the mustard family (Brassicaceae). It is native to Europe, western and central Asia, north-western Africa, Morocco, Iberian Peninsula, Iberia and the ...

autumn olive ''Elaeagnus umbellata'' is known as Japanese silverberry, umbellata oleaster, autumn olive, autumn elaeagnus, or spreading oleaster. The species is indigenous to eastern Asia and ranges from the Himalayas eastwards to Japan. It is a hardy, aggre ...

, and tree-of-heaven are slowly become more prevalent in the ravine. There are a total of 14 species of trees in the ravine of Toby Run. There are eight shrub species in the ravine. These include alternate-leaved dogwood, red willow,

, spicebush,

American elderberry ''Sambucus canadensis'', the American black elderberry, Canada elderberry, or common elderberry, is a species of elderberry native to a large area of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, south to Bolivia. It grows in a variety of conditio ...

wild hydrangea ''Hydrangea arborescens'', commonly known as smooth hydrangea, wild hydrangea, sevenbark, or in some cases, sheep flower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Hydrangeaceae. It is a small- to medium-sized, multi-stemmed, deciduous shru ...

, and

witch hazel Witch-hazels or witch hazels (''Hamamelis'') are a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, with three species in North America ('' H. ovalis'', '' H. virginiana'', and '' H. vernalis''), and one each in Japan ('' H.&nb ...

Additionally, there are 22 species of

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicina ...

s in the ravine. These include dame's rocket,

jewelweed ''Impatiens'' is a genus of more than 1,000 species of flowering plants, widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics. Together with the genus '' Hydrocera'' (one species), ''Impatiens'' make up the family Balsaminacea ...

skunk cabbage Skunk cabbage is a common name for several plants and may refer to: * the genus '' Lysichiton'' ** Asian skunk cabbage, '' Lysichiton camtschatcensis'', grows in eastern Asia ** Western skunk cabbage, ''Lysichiton americanus'', grows in western No ...

, Indian cucumber-root, and numerous others. An insect known as the

hemlock woolly adelgid The hemlock woolly adelgid (; ''Adelges tsugae''), or HWA, is an insect of the order Hemiptera (true bugs) native to East Asia. It feeds by sucking sap from hemlock and spruce trees (''Tsuga'' spp.; ''Picea'' spp.). In its native range, HWA ...

poses a threat to the hemlock trees in the vicinity of Toby Run. The Toby Run Ravines are designated as a "Locally Significant" site in the Montour County Natural Areas Inventory. The entire watershed of Toby Run is designated as a coldwater fishery.

References