In 1900, Luther D. Wishard, a secertary of the International Committee of the Young Men’s Christian Association, was scouting the shores of Lake George for a summer home for his family. After a fruitless search, he was about to board a train to New York City when he saw the steamer “Horicon” pull up to the dock and was seized with the impulse to spend the day on the water. He began to search for excuses to spend the day on the water when he remembered a year earlier when in conversation with his friend, and nephew of Silas H. Paine, Will Johnson he had proposed an inspection of Silver Bay, for a potential location for a religious training for students in the East, modeled after those at Northfield, Massachusetts and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Wishard spend two hours at the Silver Bay Hotel and decided that it fit the need of a training conference ground. Upon returning to New York City, he met with Mr. and Mrs. Silas Paine and asked them to devote Silver Bay to Christian assemblies for the study of the Bible and missions.

Luther D. Wishard and Dr. Harlan P. Beach, the Educational Secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement, planned for a mission conference which became known as The Forward Movement Council on Bible Study and Foreign Missions of the Congregational Churches. More than 200 delegates attended this first conference. Wishard proposed at the close of this conference to the leaders that a series of interdenominational classes be held at Silver Bay in 1902. Leaders of the proposed 1902 conference arranged for a dinner meeting with Paine where they proposed full use of Silver Bay fom June 27, 1902 to Labor Day. Paine agreed to the proposal under the condition of 4 terms. The rooms must be filled – with first choice being given to the organization pre-empting space for a given time, C.C. Michener was given second choice for young men from the Y.M.C.A. who came as vacation guests, if the first and second choices didn’t fill the hotel, he reserved the right to fill the rooms. The rate was one dollar per day per person if as many as four could be put in a room, if the number in a room was limited the rate would be $1.50 per day.

The organization of the Young People’s Missionary Movement (Missionary Education Movement) during the 1902 season was a most important event. During July 1902, 168 leaders in missionary work, Sunday schools, and young people’s societies met for 10 days at Silver Bay and drafted a constitution for the Young People’s Missionary Movement. The organization soon became the medium through which 15 denominational boards cooperated in promotiong missionary education throughout the country. It was not an independent organization but a gederation, or clearing house. Wishard once said that the Young People’s Missionary Movement was the only one of the national enterprises promoted at Silver Bay which was conceived and born there.

In 1903, Paine made a generous offer to sell the Silver Bay Property to the group operating the summer conferences. Incorporation of a holding body became a practical necessity. Silver Bay Association for Christian Conferences and Training was incorporated under the laws of New York State in 1904. The first meeting of the new Silver Bay Association was held on April 1, 1904, when a certified charter was presented to the committee and spread on the minutes. On July 22, 1904, the Silver Bay Assocation voted to purchase the Silver Bay Hotel property from Paine. The sale included 1,000 acres of land (including two mountain lakes), a large hotel and smaller cottage, five small cottages, stables for work and livery horses and cows, storage for farm and other implements, a laundry with “modern” equipment, a boathouse with a fleet of rowboats, and a bathhouse with forty lockers. The property was valued at $150,000 but Paine offered it to the Silver Bay Association for $70,000. Silver Bay Association also voted to purchase several parcels of land adjoning the hotel in order to round out the holdings. These parcels included: a house and acerage with 250 feet frontage on Oneida Bay (Van Buren Bay), three furnished cottages owned by Paine, Slim Point, 108 acres; timber land, and 250 acres boardering Jabe’s Pond.

The First Encampment for training of Scout Leaders in America was held at Silver Bay from August 16 to 31, 1910. Outdoor leaders from across the country gathered with their youth members. Indian teepees were set up in a circle around a central firepit—forming what became the Council Ring. Meals, sleeping arrangements, and evening campfires occurred in the ring, while most daytime activities were held in the surrounding fields and woodlands.
Participants came from a variety of clubs, each with its own identity. The YMCA group, for example, was known as the “Scout-Crafters,” building on the YMCA’s legacy of boys’ camps dating back to 1884.
During the camp, woodcraft and nature skills were emphasized. Instruction included knot-tying, campsite design, fire-making under difficult conditions, outdoor cooking, plant identification, wound treatment, and even knife and hatchet throwing. By the camp’s end on September 1st, participants had learned nearly every known camping skill of the time.
This seminal event laid the groundwork for the first U.S. Scout handbook and left a lasting imprint on the movement. The significance of the Silver Bay gathering was later honored when both Laurence Doggett and Edgar Robinson were awarded the Silver Buffalo Award—the Boy Scouts of America’s highest national honor for distinguished service to youth.