Dr. Heather Sharkey, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was doing some volunteer work transcribing herbarium specimens for the Mid-Atlantic Megalopolis digitization project when she came upon a note on a specimen from Charles Wilkins Short. The note reads, “With this specimen, plucked in Bartram's Garden in the spring of 1816 (in company with the Abbé Correa, the venerable William Bartram, and my friend and fellow student Dr. Edward Barton, all of whom are long since dead) this collection commenced. C.W. Short, M.D., Kentucky, 1857.” This otherwise unremarkable specimen – just a twig and a few flowers of yellow root (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) – was the start of what would become one of the largest and finest private herbaria in the world, amounting to roughly 15,000 beautifully prepared and preserved specimens now housed at The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia. The conditions surrounding the start of such a prominent collection (Short distributed tens of thousands of high-quality specimens to dozens of botanists around the world) provide a unique lens through which to examine the development of American botany in the early to mid-19th century. However, subsequent investigation into Short’s biography and correspondence identified a small problem – he was not in Philadelphia in the spring of 1816. In this presentation, we present evidence that the year on the label was recalled by Short in error, and in the process explore his training and growth as a botanist as well as his role in the national and international botanical community in the 1800s.