Outside of "Penn vs. Baltimore", recorded European interest in the land that was to become South Bethany dates to at least 1687, when an Englishman, Matthew Scarborough, had much of the area of what are now Bethany Beach and South Bethany surveyed, the 500 acres (202 hectares) surveyed in the northern part of the area becoming known as "Scarborough's Adventure," while a 500-acre (202-hectare) parcel to its south became known as "Middlesex." He "took up" – i.e., took possession of – the two parcels of land in 1688, and they were renamed "North Petherton" and "South Petherton." The part of the area that would become South Bethany was included in a 430-acre (174-hectare) portion of South Petherton at the head of Little Assawoman Bay about two miles (3.2 km) south of what is now Bethany Beach granted to Scarborough under a Maryland land patent in 1695.