Editing Bethany Beach, Delaware (section)

===Before 1900===
[[File:Ocean View church group future Bethany Beach 1880.jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|A church group from [[Ocean View, Delaware|Ocean View]], Delaware, at a fish fry along the uninhabited Atlantic coast east of Ocean View in 1880. Bethany Beach would be founded in this area 21 years later. This may be the first photograph ever taken of what was to become Bethany Beach.<ref>{{cite book|title=Bethany Beach Memoirs: A Long Look Back|year=1998|publisher=Harold E. Dukes|page=160|author=James D. Meehan|edition=Fourth Printing|author2=Harold E. Dukes}}</ref>]]
There is a lack of evidence of Native American activity in the Bethany Beach area. Prior to the arrival of European settlers in North America, Native American settlements appear to have been limited to the area north of the [[Indian River (Delaware)|Indian River]], north of what is now Bethany Beach; even after Europeans pushed the Native Americans—mostly [[Nanticoke Indian Tribe|Nanticokes]]—out of their coastal settlements in the mid-17th century, the Native Americans moved west to settle around [[Oak Orchard, Delaware|Oak Orchard]], Delaware, and in the [[Millsboro, Delaware|Millsboro]], Delaware, area rather than south toward what would become Bethany Beach.<ref name="Meehan, p. 15">{{cite book|title=Bethany Beach Memoirs: A Long Look Back|year=1998|publisher=Harold E. Dukes|author=James D. Meehan|edition=Fourth Printing|author2=Harold E. Dukes|page=15}}</ref> However, Native Americans are known to have visited the bays and rivers of the Atlantic coast of Delaware during the summer to fish, and it is possible that this included visits to the Bethany Beach area.<ref>Walter, Laura, "Past," ''The Story of South Bethany, Delaware'', Ocean View, Delaware: Coastal Point LLC, 2015, p. 13.</ref>

Europeans also did not settle the area prior to 1900, probably because [[Indian River Inlet]] cut the area off from their settlements to the north and because the town of [[Ocean View, Delaware|Ocean View]], founded in 1889 and now Bethany Beach's neighbor to the west, did not expand its boundaries eastward toward the coast.<ref name="Meehan, p. 15"/>

The portion of Delaware in which Bethany Beach lies was subject to a lengthy legal dispute as to whether the land belonged to the [[Province of Maryland]] or the [[Province of Pennsylvania]], [[Penn–Calvert Boundary Dispute|''Penn vs. Baltimore'']], that broke out in 1683. While it dragged on, [[William Penn]] granted the [[Delaware Colony]] its own legislature in 1701, establishing it as a separate colony. The dispute over the boundaries of the three colonies was not resolved until 1759, when the parties to the dispute agreed that the area where Bethany Beach now lies was part of Delaware.