Dickens in the Heights?

Since June 9 was the anniversary of Charles Dickens death (1870), I decided to rifle through the old Eagle archives to see if "Boz" had ever set foot in the County of Kings, and of course, he did. He gave a series of readings at Plymouth Church in the late 1860s or so. But I also found a lengthy article written in 1890 about a much disputed earlier trip to the borough.

There were some Brooklyn Heights residents with a distinct memory of a reception for Dickens being held in the neighborhood on his first trip to the States in 1842. However, the owners of the various fine homes in which this reception supposedly took place, refuted it. It's amazing how many people the reporter tracked down in trying to get to the bottom of things, but everyone had a different recollection. The people quoted add up to a who's who of the Heights at the time, with familiar names such as Packer, Joralemon and Low.

Anyhow, I reprinted most of the exhaustive article in the Eagle this week. If you're feeling the strength, it's kind of an amusing read.