Early inhabitants of the village on the Byram river were known for their boat building skills.

They dig pits in the ground, stand the logs upright in the pits to cut and saw them for boat building thus causing people say they were going down to the “saw pits”

The first English settlers arrived in what is now Port Chester from Greenwich, CT in 1660.

Along with boatbuilding, other early Saw Pit occupations included farming and trading, especially moving produce by boat between Saw Pit and New York City

There was also a lot of digging for clams and oysters in the bank of the Byram River.

The local legend says the Byram River got its name from the Indians who came to “buy rum” from white settlers.

As the small village grew and thrived, some residents pushed for a name change from Saw Pit to the more impressive-sounding “Port Chester,” after Chester, in England, the birthplace of many early settlers.

The new village was formed when the New York State legislature granted a charter on May 14, 1868.

At the time Port Chester had a population of about 3,500, six churches, one public and one parochial school, a foundry, two banks, several coal and lumberyards, a railroad station, and a few dozen stores.

Venturing to New York City was a day’s journey, at best — the roads were rutted and carried the risk of armed bandits, but the trip became easier and safer with the 1879 launch of the Port Chester Transportation Company and the village’s first regular steamboat service, between New York City and Port Chester three times a week.

As Port Chester transformed from a farming community to an industrial town, the 1897 trolley line extension from Larchmont to Stamford, CT, brought more transportation options.

And in 1918, the Port Chester-White Plains Bus Line, organized by a group of taxicab operators, cut a trip into White Plains from more than an hour to just 15 minutes.

In 1926 a vaudeville playhouse theater, now the iconic Capitol Theatre, arrived.

Built by Thomas Lamb, who was also responsible for the original Madison Square Garden.

The Capitol Theatre remains one of Port Chester’s landmarks and a destination for popular and headliner entertainment.

The village also made its mark nationally through another source of pride, the Port Chester High School Marching Band, with appearances in the Rose Bowl in Miami and the movies Spider-Man 3 and 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street.