Author Description

This is not a reproduction of an earlier published work** A transcription of a journal kept by John Howard Redfield (1815-1895). In 1879 Redfield, an amateur botanist, went with Prof. Asa Gray, Charles Sargent and William Canby to see a rare plant with an historic storied past - Shortia galacifolia, also known today as Oconee bell. First found in 1787 by Andre Michaux on his travels to the Carolina’s, a sample was sent back to Paris, France. Asa Gray saw this specimen in 1839 while visiting Paris, and realizing that this plant was unknown and unnamed, he began a 40 year search for the living specimen. Along the way he named it for Dr. Charles Short, who died in 1863 having never seen the plant. After Shortia’s rediscovery in 1877, Gray traveled to North Carolina to see the plant that had so long eluded him. Redfield kept a journal of this trip which, until 2012, remained unread but was passed down in the Redfield family. I was given this journal and have transcribed all it contained which includes brief input from the others on the trip. An additional short travel journal is included, written by twenty-one year old William C. Redfield (1789-1857) of his 1810 trip from Middletown, Connecticut to Randolph, Ohio. William, the father of John, eventually served as the first president of the AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science.