A pump borer “bores tree trunks to make the cylinders of pumps” (OED description begins James A. H. Murray, J. A. Simpson, E. S. C. Weiner, and others, eds., The Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed., 1989, 20 vols. description ends ).

John M. Perry’s November 1818 agreement to sell 48.75 acres bordering the 43.75 acres he initially sold to Central College stipulated that “three disinterested judges” were to assign a value to his improvements on this property and that this sum would be added to the $40-per-acre price of the land itself. Shortly after Central College turned over its assets to the University of Virginia, in April 1819 the new institution honored the agreement with a $3,000 down payment to Perry (Agreement by Perry to Sell Lands to Central College, 7 Nov. 1818; Perry to TJ, 10 Apr. 1819, and note).

On this date the three referees, William D. Meriwether, Reuben Lindsay, and John Jordan, completed a valuation according to which Perry’s improvements consisted of a west pavilion worth $1,529.42, an east pavilion with portico worth $1,554.42, a new addition worth $662.42, and “Kitchen Out Houses & Impts” worth $1,535.54, for a total of $5,281.80 (MS in ViU: PP; in Meriwether’s hand, signed by Meriwether, Lindsay, and Jordan; endorsed by Brockenbrough: “Valuation of the improvements on the land purchased of John M Perry,” with his additional calculation on verso that, the land being worth $1,950, the total value of the land plus improvements was $7,231.80).

Presumably reacting to the completion of the valuation, also on 4 Sept. 1819 Perry wrote to Brockenbrough with two propositions under which he would give immediate possession of this land to the university: “for you to give me a deed in trust to secure the payment of the money at the time it was to be paid according to Contract—otherwise I will give possesion upon your promis that you will give me back the possesion in Case the money is not paid at the time stipulated—again if you will say to me that you will see the money paid as aforesaid—Either of the above arrangements will be satisfactory to me or any other mode that will answer your purpose better will answer mine,” so long as the purchase price was secured to him when it became due (RC in ViU: PP; addressed: “Mr A. S. Brockenbrough Proctor u v”; endorsed by Brockenbrough). In a second letter written around this time, Perry asked Brockenbrough for “a Coppy of the agreement spoken of,” commented that “with respect to making a right to the property I have been allways ready & willing which I have told you before. and have urged the Necessaty of Closeing the Contract ever Since it was in existance,” expressed a willingness to refer either of his two propositions to arbitration, “and if thought unreasonable to abandon the Idie [i.e., Idea],” and concluded that “my arrangement in mony matters forbids my doing less than to make the payment Certain” (RC in ViU: PP; undated; endorsed by Brockenbrough as a letter of 4 Sept. 1819; addressed: “Mr A. S. Brockenbrough P. u. v—Present”).

With the purchase price finally established, on 23 Sept. 1819 Perry signed a receipt confirming that he had “Recd of A. S. Brockenbrough a Dft on Alex: Garrett for Six hundred & fifteen Dolls 90 cents being the balance of the first payment of the forty eight & 3⁄4 acres of land sold to the Central College & one half the value of the improvements thereon” (MS in ViU: PP; in Brockenbrough’s hand, signed by Perry; endorsed in an unidentified hand, in part, as “pd 23rd Septr 1819 $615.90”).