Little Cacapon River

The Little Cacapon River is a 25.1-mile-long (40.4 km)^[1] free-flowing tributary of the Potomac River in the center of Hampshire County, West Virginia.^[2] Via the Potomac River, its waters are part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, leading to the Atlantic Ocean. The Little Cacapon enters the Potomac at an elevation of 499 feet (152 m) near the community of Little Cacapon. For the majority of its course the Little Cacapon is a shallow non-navigable stream. It has been historically referred to as both Little Cacapehon and Little Capecaphon. The name is pronounced /kəˈkeɪpən/ kə-KAY-pən or locally /ˈkeɪpən/ KAY-pən.

The Little Cacapon is formed at the confluence of two small streams, the North Fork Little Cacapon and the South Fork Little Cacapon, shortly after they both pass north under the Northwestern Turnpike (U.S. Route 50) at Frenchburg. From Frenchburg, the Little Cacapon flows north between Town Hill, 1,329 feet (405 m) high, to its west and Little Cacapon Mountain, 1,575 feet (480 m) high, to its east. Flowing from a hollow in Town Hill, Shawan Run feeds into the Little Cacapon at Barnes Mill. Two miles (3 km) north, Three Churches Run also feeds into the river from Town Hill. At Higginsville on Slanesville Pike (County Route 3) near the old Vinita School, the river is fed by Crooked Run at Queens Ridge (1,322 feet (403 m) high). From Higginsville, the Little Cacapon continues northeast along Town Hill with 1,161-foot (354 m) Noland Ridge bounding it to the east. Also in the vicinity of Higginsville, Little Cacapon-Levels Road (County Route 3/3) intersects with Slanesville Pike, and as its name suggests, the road follows the Little Cacapon north until it diverges northwest to Levels via Hoffman Hollow. It is within this stretch of the stream that the Little Cacapon meanders by the community of Creekvale. At the entrance of Neals Run, the Little Cacapon is met to its east by 2,237-foot (682 m) Spring Gap Mountain and then flows beneath the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and empties into the Potomac River.