It rises south of McAdoo Heights near Haddock,[2] Kline Township in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, on top of Broad Mountain.
It flows south, then southwest passing through the communities of Tamaqua and New Ringgold.
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission has designated several parts of the stream special trout stocking areas.
[3] Its name is derived from the Lenape word for "beaver" (tëmakwe[4] or tamaqua) and also the Lenape method for using "hunter’s hints,"[5] which identified it as the "place of the beavers".
When European settlers arrived in the region, the Little Schuylkill River, a tributary of the Schuylkill River, came to be known as Little Schuylkill River with the name Schuylkill coming from the Dutch language word that translates as "hidden river".