John Wood (ca. 1775–1822), political writer, educator, and cartographer, was a native of Scotland who spent time in France and Switzerland before moving to New York City in 1800. He soon met Aaron Burr and wrote a series of pamphlets supporting his political positions. One of Wood’s efforts, The History of the Administration of John Adams (New York, 1802; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 506) proved so inflammatory that Burr tried unsuccessfully to suppress it. Wood lived briefly in Kentucky about 1806 and resided thereafter chiefly in Richmond, where he taught TJ’s grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph at Louis H. Girardin’s academy, 1809–10, and pursued his own mathematical and scientific interests. In 1817 he tutored another of TJ’s grandsons, Francis Eppes, began mapping the rivers of the Tidewater region, and unsuccessfully sought the professorship of mathematics at the nascent University of Virginia. Two years later Wood contracted with the commonwealth of Virginia to produce maps of all the counties and a general state map, completing ninety-six of the former before his death (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Mary-Jo Kline and others, eds., Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr [1983], 2:642–6; David Denniston and James Cheetham to TJ, 30 Jan. 1802 [DLC]; TJ to Wilson Cary Nicholas, 2 Apr. 1816; Wood to TJ, 29 May, 10 Nov. 1817; TJ to Wood, 18 May 1818; Richmond Enquirer 17, 21 May 1822).