diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 2fbd2cc7634..00c1ee63aa6 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -31,7 +31,9 @@ Release 0.20.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-1211  NPE in retries exhausted exception
    HBASE-1233  Transactional fixes: Overly conservative scan read-set,
                potential CME (Clint Morgan via Stack)
-   HBASE-1185  wrong request/sec in the gui reporting wrong
+   HBASE-1239  in the REST interface does not correctly clear the character
+               buffer each iteration-1185  wrong request/sec in the gui
+               reporting wrong (Brian Beggs via Stack)
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-1089  Add count of regions on filesystem to master UI; add percentage
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/Dispatcher.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/Dispatcher.java
index a9ce7515df9..9f5c14d8b5a 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/Dispatcher.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/rest/Dispatcher.java
@@ -363,7 +363,6 @@ public class Dispatcher extends javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet {
       int maxLength = 5000; // tie to conf
       int bufferLength = 640;
 
-      char[] c = new char[bufferLength]; // 40 characters * sizeof(UTF16)
       // TODO make s maxLength and c size values in configuration
       if (!r.ready()) {
         Thread.sleep(1000); // If r is not ready wait 1 second
@@ -372,7 +371,9 @@ public class Dispatcher extends javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet {
           return new byte[0];
         }
       }
+      char[] c;// 40 characters * sizeof(UTF16)
       while (r.ready()) {
+    	c = new char[bufferLength]; 
         int n = r.read(c, 0, bufferLength);
         resultant += new String(c);
         if (n != bufferLength) {