Josiah Gregg
Josiah Gregg was born in 1806 in Tennessee and grew up mostly in Missouri, plagued by bad health. By the time he was twenty-four he was stricken by what was then called consumption and advised by his doctor to go to a dryer climate he travelled to Santa Fe. Over the next ten years he made several trips back and forth between Santa Fe and Missouri, establishing himself as a successful trader. He also learned to speak Spanish, and published a book entitled Commerce of the Prairies, chronicling his adventures and business successes, in two volumes in 1844.
During the War with Mexico he served as an interpreter with the Arkansas Volunteers, after which he obtained a medical degree. A lifelong collector of plants, many of them from Mexico, he discovered many previously unknown specimens on his wanderings. In 1849 he joined in the Gold Rush, traveling to California by ship, arriving at the Trinity River that autumn.
In November 1849 Gregg and a group of seven men left the mining camp on the Trinity River, determined to chart unexplored territory to the north until they reached the line of latitude on which lay Trinity Bay, after which they planned to head due west to reach the bay itself. Misinformed of distances by Indians, the group was badly undersupplied.
Over the next several weeks the group endured an epic journey during which they quickly ran out of food and were forced to subsist on game and whatever vegetation remained during the onset of winter. Expecting a journey of about eight days, they struggled through the unexplored territory, including the Redwood Forest, before finding the ocean. Shortly after they struck Trinity Bay, now called Humboldt Bay, at a point which became the town of Bucksport. It was named for the member of the party who first spotted the bay, David Buck.
The party split in two for the journey back to San Francisco and Gregg’s group followed the coastline. Out of food and exhausted, Gregg died on the way, and was buried by his companions in an unmarked grave. Well over forty plants in the Southwest United States and Mexico carry the designation greggi in his honor.