Coney Island Institute and the World's Fair - 1851

It's hard to tell if there's any truth to the below, given the Brooklyn Daily Eagle's continual mockery of the Coney Island Institute. (Though I'm starting to wonder if the Institute itself might be just for fun?)

GOOD.--The "Coney Island Institute," we hear, will re-assemble for the season in the course of a time, if not sooner. During the winter recess, several rare specimens have been dug out, which will doubtless occupy the earliest attention of the Institute. Several new members have been elected, to represent the greatly enlarged population of the Island, which shows magnificent increase, since the census of 1840, of--several individuals, including immigrants, the latter consisting mainly of divers families of dark-faced clam-catchers, speaking the original Long Island Dutch. It is understood that the Institute will send an envoy to the World's Fair, and that one of the Jackson Ferry boats is to be chartered to convey him to London. She will take no other passengers--except a gigantic clam, which will be opened at the close of the great exhibition, and the shells presented to Queen Victoria.

--Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Monday, March 3, 1851

Expo Museum says the 1851 World's Fair in London is considered the first World's Fair.