A rounded elevation of land, usually wooded.
1556. Right above that into the land, a round hammock and greene which we took to be trees.—Hakluyt, ‘Voyages,’ p. 104. (N.E.D.)
1599. The land … was full of Hammocks, some high some lowe, with high trees on them.—Id., ii. 58. (N.E.D.)
a. 1765. The hammocks of live-oaks and palmettoes.—Stork’s ‘Account of East Florida,’ p. 13. (N.E.D.)
1775. The hammock land so called from its appearing in tufts among the lofty pines … the true hammock soil is a mixture of clay and a blackish sand, and in some spots a kind of ochre.—B. Romans, ‘Florida,’ p. 17 (N.Y.).
1775. The clump or hommock [sic] of pine trees standing near the north end of the island.—Id., p. lxxxii., Appendix.
1775. A few spots of hammock or upland, are found on this island.—Id., p. 283. (Italics in the original.)
1818. That species of slopes called hammock.—W. Darby, ‘Emigrants’ Guide,’ p. 116.
1826. A considerable tract of country, in the south, denominated “hammock-land,” and in Ohio “second bottom.”—T. Flint, ‘Recollections,’ p. 24.
1828. The term hammock, which is used in this description, we believe is one peculiar to the southern states. It means a piece of ground thickly wooded, whether a plain or a hill, and distinguished from the open oak and hickory land, or the immense forests of thinly scattered pines, which with few exceptions cover the whole face of the country. The word has been confounded with hummock, used by mariners to designate the knolls, or small elevations, along the coast.—North American Review, lviii. April, p. 486 (Bartlett). [But is it not identical with the word hummock?]
1837. Small hammocks skirt these navigable waters, presenting eligible situations for country seats…. Occasionally cabbage hammocks of considerable extent, rise in the midst of these glades.—John L. Williams, ‘The Territory of Florida,’ pp. 125, 142 (N.Y.).
1838. The horses were ordered behind a sink hole, and the detachment charged the hammock amid a galling fire from the Indians.—The Jeffersonian, Albany, June 16, p. 144.
1840. [The arms of Napoleon], which could easily beat up the narrow Pontine marshes, could have done nothing in the unexplored, impenetrable hammocks and deep morasses [of Florida].—Mr. Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate, Jan. 9: Cong. Globe, p. 83, App.
1840. The hammocks and everglades form a covering and hiding places for the savages, which render them impervious to the keenest eye and the most vigilant search.—Sir. Duncan of Ohio in the House of Repr., March 26: id., p. 278, App.
1855. Penetrated to the little swamp islet, or hammock, upon which the cabin of ’Bram Johnson stood.—W. G. Simms, ‘The Forayers,’ p. 12 (N.Y.).
