The first known occupancy of the Central Pennsylvania area was by the Susquehannock Indians and predated the arrival of the white man from Europe. Some evidence has been found on the West Shore area to confirm their presence, but not enough to confirm specific locations or activities other than burials.
With the demise of the Susquehannocks in the mid to late 1600s, the Shawnee Indians began moving from the south and west into Maryland and Pennsylvania. This was with the permission of the Penn family and the Delaware Indians. By the 1720s the Shawnees had established a village on the north side of the mouth of the Yellow Breeches. Little physical evidence has been found but their presence is well documented in various records.
Other Shawnee villages along the Susquehanna River were south of the Yellow Breeches at an undefined location, and on the north side of the mouth of the Conodoguinet Creek, which was documented in property surveys as late as 1737. It was also reported that the Shawnee lodges could be seen on the bluffs opposite John Harris' place.
The Indians had a burial ground approximately two miles upstream along the Yellow Breeches on Rich Hill at a loop in the Yellow Breeches. Rich Hill no longer exists due to a quarry operation. The property owner was of the opinion that there were also lodges there. There are also some undocumented reports of Indian villages further upstream and in the western portion of Cumberland County but no specific locations are known. Other than the obvious use of the Yellow Breeches for fishing and transportation, there is no known other use by the Indians. In 1728 the Shawnees departed the local area and headed out to western Pennsylvania and joined forces with the French to fight against the English.
In 1732 the three Lancaster jurists wrote a letter to the Shawnee chief in an enticement to get the Indians to return, offering them a 7,500 acres manor along the Susquehanna River in what would later be known as Lowther Manor. Their description of the boundary included the "Shawna Creek" on the south side, the name by which the Shawnees knew the Yellow Breeches.
The only Indian that lived near the Yellow Breeches and left his mark in history was Peter Chartier (1700-1759). He was the son of Martin Chartier, (-1718), a Frenchman from Canada and a noted Indian trader and interpreter. Martin's wife, Peter's mother, was a Shawnee. Peter Chartier established a trading post about a mile north of the Yellow Breeches along the Susquehanna River and competed with John Harris. Chartiers place or Chartiers Landing was located just off the river between 15'" and 16'" Streets in New Cumberland. While he departed with the Shawnees in the late 1720s, he frequently returned and he did obtain a deed to this property in 1739. As a Shawnee chief he was frequently involved in negotiations with the Penn government, some of which took place at the mouth of the Yellow Breeches.
There are many opinions about the source of the name, Yellow Breeches, but no conclusions. The earliest recorded use of a variation of this name that the author has found is in the Blunston's Licenses first issued to David Priest on May 2, 1734, for 200 acres of land on the south side of the "Yellow Britches" Creek. It is repeated as "Britches" in nine other licenses issued between 1734 and 1736, according to the transcription by Mrs. Harry Royes and published by the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. Local historian Robert G. Crist indicated that it was spelled "Breeches" in the Blunston Licenses. Smout's survey of 1736 included the name "Yellow Breeches". It appears that after 1737, the name "Yellow Breeches" was used, e.g., Peter Chartier's 1739 deed to his tract in New Cumberland Borough.
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