Unable to set/modify TTL on a column family using the shell.

When attempting to set the TTL parameter on a column family using the HBase shell, the following error is reported and the parameter is not modified:

hbase(main):042:0> create 't1',

{NAME => 'f1', VERSIONS => 1, TTL => 2592000, BLOCKCACHE => true}

ERROR: uninitialized constant Hbase::Admin::HColumnDescriptor