John Howard Redfield

I am the great, great, grandson of John Howard Redfield (1815-1895). In 2011 and 2012 I transcribed two journals that had been left for future generations. John Redfield, while being his own man, lived in the shadow of his father William C. Redfield (1789-1857) but seemed content to carve out his own niche in life.

J. H. Redfield first worked for his father’s steamboat company in New York City and from 1861 until his retirement for his Father-in-law’s firm, Asa Whitney and Sons, of Philadelphia making railroad wheels. With ample free time to study, he became known as a conchologist in the 1840s. He published a genealogic history of the Redfield family in 1860 which had been started by his father in the late 1830s. Today he is also remembered as an amateur botanist

Several years prior to his death he started working on “Recollections of John Howard Redfield”. In all likelihood, both of the journals I transcribed plus one that is lost would have been included in condensed form in that book.