Samuel Kercheval (1767–1845), an innkeeper at Stephensburg, near Winchester, is best known for his History of the Valley of Virginia (1833). In 1816 he supported unsuccessful calls for a state constitutional convention by the underrepresented western half of Virginia. Writing under the pseudonym of “H. Tompkinson,” in that year Kercheval elicited a memorable letter from TJ both approving of a convention and endorsing democratic reforms. However, when TJ learned that the letter was circulating widely, he demanded that Kercheval retrieve any copies, and he denied him permission to publish the letter both then and in 1824 (John Walter Wayland, Twenty-Five Chapters on the Shenandoah Valley [1957], 283–6; Malone, Jefferson description begins Dumas Malone, Jefferson and his Time, 1948–81, 6 vols. description ends , 6:348–50, 442).