William Waller Hening (1767–1828), attorney and legal scholar, represented Albemarle County in the House of Delegates, 1804–05, served on the Virginia Council of State, 1805–10, and was deputy adjutant general, 1808–14. He became clerk of the Superior Court of Chancery for the Richmond District in 1810 and served until his death. Hening was best known for his extensive legal writings, beginning with his New Virginia Justice (Richmond, 1795; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 1971), to which TJ subscribed, and culminating with his edition of The Statutes at Large; being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, 13 vols. (Richmond, 1809–23; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 1863), a landmark of legal scholarship that printed the commonwealth’s laws from 1619–1792, along with many other public documents. His correspondence with TJ during the retirement period focused primarily on his preparation of this work, which drew extensively on TJ’s collections of legal records (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 ; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 31 vols. description ends , 28:105–6; Samuel M. Walker Jr., “William Waller Hening,” description begins William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large; being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809–23, 13 vols. description ends in W. Hamilton Bryson, ed., The Virginia Law Reporters Before 1880 [1977], 19–24; Richmond Enquirer, 4 Apr. 1828).

A year earlier TJ had sent Hening eight volumes of manuscript laws for the years 1623–1711, the first volume of which contained the laws for 1623–24 given to TJ by Peyton Randolph (Hening to TJ, 17 May 1808, and TJ to Hening, description begins William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large; being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809–23, 13 vols. description ends 7 June 1808 [DLC]; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 1822). clements may have been one of two merchants in Philadelphia named James Clement (Robinson, Philadelphia Directory for 1809 description begins James Robinson, The Philadelphia Directory for 1809, 1809 description ends ).