See quotation 1819; also Mr. Matthews’s paper in ‘Publ. Col. Soc. Mass.,’ vi. 137–51.
1653. Thirty acors of uppland and fortie acors of Entervale land.—Early Rec. Lancaster (Mass.), 27. (N.E.D.)
1683. Every person that has sixty acres granted of interval land shall settle two inhabitants upon it.—‘History of Northfield,’ p. 95. (N.E.D.)
1771. The road is three quarters of a mile from the river, and the interval land lies between.—John Adams, ‘Diary,’ June 7. (N.E.D.)
1788. A piece of interval, on the bank of the Ohio, measured 100 bushels of ears to the acre.—Mass. Spy, Dec. 11.
1789. The first bottom or interval, upon the creeks, are not (sic) equal to those upon the larger rivers.—Id., June 11.
1789. [We found this stream] meandering through extensive fine interval lands.—Maryland Gazette, Oct. 9.
1792. In the intervale land on Connecticut River, wheat often yields forty, and sometimes fifty bushels, to the acre.—Jeremy Belknap, ‘New Hampshire,’ iii. 136.
1805. “Two very valuable intervale Farms” in Vermont, advertised for sale.—The Repertory, Boston, March 29.
1816. The bottom or interval land, upon the Ohio and great rivers emptying into it, is by far the best.—Letter to the Mass. Spy, Jan. 10.
1817. Much damage was sustained by the destruction of mill-dams and of crops on the “intervales” in Otsego and Schoharie counties.—Boston Weekly Messenger, Aug. 21.
1818. [This] is called in the colonial language of the country interval land.—W. Darby, ‘Tour to Detroit,’ p. 59 (1819). (Italics in the original.)
1819. What flat lands are in New-England called intervales, the Western planters call bottoms, or prairies; and the Southern, natural meadows, or savannahs. The intervales between pine tracts and the savannahs, are called hammocks.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 110 (Boston, 1824).
1819. All the large bottoms or intervales are subject to inundations.—Letter from Ohio, Boston Weekly Messenger, July 5.
1821. The Governor had been informed … that there were very fine meadows, or intervals, in this township.—T. Dwight, ‘Travels,’ ii. 98.
1821. The word, Interval, you have undoubtedly observed, is used by me in a sense, altogether different from that, which it has in an English Dictionary. Doctor Belknap spells it Intervale, and confesses his want of authority for the use of the word. There is in truth no such word; unless we are to look for its existence in vulgar, and mistaken pronunciation.—Id., ii. 328. [The formation of these meadows is discussed, pp. 329–31.]
1822. “One hundred acres of rich Interval and Upland,” on the Nashua River, for sale.—Mass. Spy, July 31.
1825. The rivers of New England rarely fail to overflow the “intervale,” or low lands, through which they run, two or three times a year.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ i. 360.
1827. There is also much upland, interval, and hammock land, of the most excellent quality.—John L. Williams, ‘View of West Florida,’ p. 6 (Phila.).
