William H. Anderson (b. ca. 1785), sailor and adventurer, was a native of Winchester. By his own account, he departed from Virginia in 1802, traveling with his partner, George Johnson, from Pittsburgh down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. In that city, the pair purportedly purchased a brig, sailed for Brazil, and traveled widely until they were captured and sold to an Arab pirate who traded them to a neighboring prince. They allegedly rose to high rank and found themselves engaged in battles with the British East India Company. After Johnson’s reputed death in action, Anderson claimed to have escaped from India on a British vessel and arrived in the autumn of 1820 in London, making his passage back to Norfolk in 1821. By early the following year newspapers were reprinting reports that he was in fact a swindler obtaining loans and subscriptions by inflating or inventing accounts of his travels (DNA: RG 36, USCA, New Orleans, 7 Aug. 1806, Philadelphia, 22 May 1807; Curtis Carroll Davis, “‘Anderson’s Narrative!’—A Lost American Travel Book,” VMHB description begins Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1893–  description ends 69 [1961]: 80–2; Baltimore Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser, 18 Jan. 1821; New-York Evening Post, 26 May 1821; Salem, Mass., Essex Register, 10 Jan. 1822).

No letter from Anderson is recorded in SJL, and none has been found. On this day TJ recorded sending “Wm. H. Anderson of Balt. 3.D. sbscrptn. to his Travels” (MB description begins James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1376). Anderson’s intended publication seems never to have appeared.