William Wood (d. ca. 1822) was a nephew of Patrick Henry (1736–99). In the 1790s Wood lived with his widowed mother and siblings in Albemarle County about seven miles from Monticello, at the confluence of Buck Island Creek and the Rivanna River. He was evidently still a minor in 1796 and 1797, when TJ rented slaves Wood owned through the authorization of his guardian. TJ later paid him occasionally for water carriage of flour and other goods. By 1807 Wood owned a mill on the Rivanna near Columbia in Fluvanna County. The Virginia General Assembly authorized him to improve navigation from the mouth of the Rivanna to Milton in 1814, three years later granted him a price increase in tolls, and in 1822 allowed him to build a toll bridge across the Rivanna at his mill. In 1819 Wood offered to supply lumber for the construction of the University of Virginia. At the time of his death he owned $309.33 in personal property, in addition to two boats and a sawmill (Woods, Albemarle description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. 1991 description ends , 347; 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 ; Minnie Lee McGehee and William E. Trout III, Mr. Jefferson’s River: The Rivanna [2001], 19, 21; TJ to James Madison, 16 Aug. 1807 [DLC: Madison Papers, Rives Collection]; TJ to William D. Meriwether, 27 Dec. 1809; petition of citizens of Albemarle, Louisa, and Fluvanna counties, 21 Oct. 1814 [Vi: RG 78, Legislative Petitions, Albemarle Co.]; Acts of Assembly description begins Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia (cited by session; title varies over time) description ends [1814–15 sess.], 113–4 [22 Dec. 1814]; [1816–17 sess.], 95 [7 Feb. 1817]; [1821–22 sess.], 43–4 [21 Feb. 1822]; petition of John Ashlin, 11 Dec. 1816 [Vi: RG 78, Legislative Petitions, Fluvanna Co.]; Wood to Arthur S. Brockenbrough, 15 June 1819 [ViU: PP]; Fluvanna Co. Will Book, 2:379–81, 386–7; Richmond Enquirer, 19 June 1827).

On 9 Feb. 1820 TJ dispatched 197 barrels of flour to Richmond by Wood’s boats. The shipment constituted a portion of Thomas Jefferson Randolph’s rent for 1819. On 23 Feb. 1820 TJ gave Wood an order on Patrick Gibson for $133.33 (correctly $131.33) as payment for freight (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 , 2:1360, 1361).