Ramsbottom Grant Arms Hotel in Market Place was the home of William and Daniel Grant, 19th century industrialists closely associated with the rise of the town and reputed to be the inspiration for the Cheeryble brothers in "Nicholas Nickleby" by Charles Dickens. The Grants' employees were paid in tokens that had to be redeemed at a public house owned by the company. The landlord converted the tokens into cash, but only after deducting threepence per person, which had to be spent on beer, a variation on the truck system. A network of roads and railways routed through Ramsbottom allowed for a
Dickens in America two things that Dickens particularly wanted to see on his trip. Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia and Niagara Falls. Dickens took his flowery pen to the falls and wrote about them eloquently. Miriam is “lost for words.” Dickens said that he heard many voices in the roar of the falls and that one of the voices was of his deceased sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth. Miriam is not at a loss for words when she turns her back to the falls and looks at the town of Niagara. “It’s really ghastly,” she says. Dickens visited the Niagara Falls Museum, which was founded