Long presumed obsolete after Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, the "general common law" has reemerged as a subject of serious inquiry in recent scholarship in constitutional law and public law more broadly. This Article investigates one strand of that revival: the claim that there existed, and may still exist, a "general law of interpretation," an unwritten body of trans-jurisdictional principles governing how judges construe statutes and other instruments. Drawing on early American sources, the Article reconstructs how courts and commentators understood interpretive methodology in the framing era and nineteenth century, especially with regard to how methods could vary across time and place.&nbsp; <br><br>The study reveals both continuity and change. While early interpretive practice reflected inherited English principles, American jurisdictions localized those rules to suit state institutions or policy goals. Federal courts, long before Erie, acknowledged and applied these localized approaches when construing state law. At the same time, some characteristics of the general law of interpretation linger on even today. These findings unsettle the familiar narrative of Erie as a sharp turning point and provide new perspectives on current debates over methodological pluralism and federal-state relations. The findings also show that the roots of today's methodological diversity reach deep into the common-law past. Armed with a fuller understanding of the pre-Erie law(s) of interpretation, one can see that a revival of the world of general law, at least in the field of statutory interpretation, would neither offer the benefits of conflict-free consensus nor threaten to unleash disastrous chaos.