Bethany has been functioning as a camp five miles East of Sinclairville, NY for 20 years, but history takes it back another 25 years to its beginning on Chautauqua Lake. The ten acres of land that were purchased near Mayville in 1951, were cleared of brush and drainage ditches and a ball field was bulldozed.

In 1976, the last year that Bethany operated at the old site, the music camp, attended by about 80 campers, did a floating concert, both choral and instrumental, on the Chautauqua Belle, getting off to entertain people at various locations.

In 1974, the Health Department declared that the camp on Chautauqua Lake must change the septic system or close. This, along with a number of other reasons, resulted in the purchase of 170 acres of the present site.