and the Sacramento " Democratic State Journal." of which he was an editor ami proprietor. In 1856 he was mayor of Sacramento, and from IN>:! nil 1867 he was secretary of state. From 1864 until his death he was land agent of the Central Pacific railroad. Mr. Redding was a regent of the Uni- versity of California, and a member of the Cali- fornia academy of sciences, and of the Geographical society of the" Pacific. He was also a state fish commissioner, holding this office at the time of his death. He was interested in all scientific work, especially in the paleontology of the coast, ami collected'numerous prehistoric and aboriginal relics, which he presented to the museum of the academy. He contributed a large number of papers to vari- ous California journals.
REDFIELD, Amasa Angell. lawyer, b. in
Clyde, Wayne co.. N. Y., 19 May. 1837. He was
graduated'at the University of the city of New
York in 1860, studied law, was admitted to the bar,
and began to practise in New York city. From
1877 till 1882 he was the official reporter of the sur-
rogate's court in that city. He was a contributor
to the "Knickerbocker" magazine, and has pub-
lished " Hand-Book of the U. S. Tax Laws " i ,-w
York. 1863) ; " Reports of the Surrogates' Courts of
the State of New York " (5 vols.. IsiU-'sii ; " Law
and Practice of Surrogates' Courts " (1^T."> ; 3d cd.,
1884) : and, with Thomas G. Shearman, " The Law
of Negligence" (1869; 4th ed., 1888).
REDFIELD, Isaac Fletcher, jurist, b. in
Wethersfield, Windsor CO., Vt., 10 April, 1804; d.
in Charlestown, Mass., 23 March, 1876. He -was
graduated at Dartmouth in 1825, studied law, was
admitted to the bar, and practised at Derby and
Windsor. Vt. He was state's attorney for Orleans
county from 1832 till 1835, when he became judge
of the Vermont supreme court, and in 1852 he was
appointed chief justice. He finally retired from
the bench in 1860. From 1857 till 1861 he was
professor of medical jurisprudence at Dartmouth.
ID the latter year he removed to Boston, where he
remained until his death. From January, 1867,
he was for two years special counsel of the United
States in Europe, having charge of many impor-
tant suits and legal matters in England and France.
He received the degree of LL. D. from Trinity in
1849, and from Dartmouth in 1855. He is the au-
thor of " A Practical Treatise on the Law of Rail-
ways " (Boston, 1857 : 5th ed., 2 vols.. 1873) ; " The
Law of Wills" (part i., 1864: 3d ed.. 1869; and
parts ii. and iii., 1870); "A Practical Treatise on
Civil Pleading and Practice, with Forms," with
William A. Herrick (1868): "The Law of Carriers
and Bailments" (1869); and " Leading American
Railway Cases (2 vols.. 1870). He also edited
Joseph Story's "Equity Pleadings," and "Conflict
of Laws " ; and Greenleaf " On Evidence." From
1862 till his death he was an editor of the " Ameri-
can Law Register" (Philadelphia).
REDFIELD. Justus Starr, publisher, b. in
Wallingford, Conn., 2 Jan.. 1810; d. near Florence.
N. J., 24 March, 1888. After receiving a limited
education, he learned the printing business, and
afterward stereotyping. In 1831 he opened an office I
in New York, and began the publication of " The I
Family Magazine," the first illustrated monthly in
this country, which he continued for eight years.
Benson J. Lossing and A. Sidney Doane at differ-
ent times acted as editors. The early death "I 1
Mr. Redfield's brother, who had charge of tin 1 en-
graving department, discouraged the furt her prose-
cution of the work. About 1841 he opened a 1 k-
store in the same city, and carried on the business
of book-selling, printing, and publishing until IXIMI.
He was the original American publisher of the
works of Edgar Allan Ppe. William Maginn, and
John Doran. He also issued "Noctes Ambrosi-
an;e." the revised novels of William Gilmore
Simms, and a large miscellaneous list. From 1855
till l*iiO George L. Duyckinck was interested with
Mr. Redfield as a special partner. In 1861 he was
appointed U. S. consul at Otranto, Italy, and in
I s ii4 was transferred to Brindisi, but resigned in
1866. He edited Jean Mace's "Histoire d'une
bouchee de pain " (Paris. 1861), and translated from
the Italian "The Mysteries of Neapolitan Con-
vents." by Henrietta Caracciolo (Hartford. 1867).
REDFIELD, William C., meteorologist, b. near Middletown. Conn., 26 March. 1789; d. in New
York city, 12 Feb., 1857. He assumed the initial
C on coming of age. At the age of fourteen he
was apprenticed to a saddler in Upper Middle-
town (now Cromwell). In 1810, on the expiration
of his apprenticeship, he went on foot to visit his
mother in Ohio, and kept a journal of his experi-
ences. After spending the winter in Ohio he re-
turned to Upper Middletown, and engaged in his
trade for nearly fourteen years, also keeping a
small country store. In 1827 he came to New
York city. Meanwhile, after the great September
gale of 1821, Mr. Redfield arrived at the conclu-
sion that the storm was a progressive whirlwind ;
but other enterprises prevented the development
of his theory at that time. He became interested
in steam navigation, and as the general community
had become alarmed by several disastrous steam-
boat explosions he devised and established a line
of safety-barges, consisting of large and commo-
dious passenger-boats towed by a steamboat at suf-
ficient distance to prevent danger, to run between
New York and Albany. When the public confi-
dence was restored he transformed his line into a
system of tow-boats for conveying freight, which
continued until after his death. "He was largely
identified with the introduction of railroads, and
in 1829 he issued a pamphlet in which he placed
before the American people the plan of a system of
railroads to connect Hudson river with the Missis-
sippi by means of a route that was substantially that
of the New York and Erie railroad. During the
same year he became convinced of the desirability
of street-railways in cities, and petitioned the New
York common council for permission to lay tracks
along Canal street. In 1832 he explored the proposed routeof the Harlem railroad, and was instrumental in securing the charter of that road; also, about that time he w,i- associated with James Brewster in the movement that resulted in the construction of the Hartford and Ne Haven railroad. His first paper on the " Atlantic Storms " was published in 1831 in the " American Journal of Science." ami in 1834 it was followed by his memoir on the " Hurricanes and Storms of the United States and We-t Indies," which subject he continued later, with numerous papers, descriptions, and tables of particular hurricanes. Subsequently he devoted some attention to geology, studying the fossil fisli the sandstone formations. In 1856 he demonstrated that the fossils of the Connecticut river valley and the New Jersey sandstones, to which he gave the name of the Newark group, belonged to the lower Jurassic period. In 1839 he received the honorary degree ol A. M. from Yale, and he was an active member of the American association of naturalists and geologists. To his influem > ihe change of the latter organization to the more comprehensive American association for the advancement of science was largely due, and in 1843 he was its first president, having charge of the Philadelphia
