"paint the town red"--slight antedating (maybe)

[Stephen Goranson]

Hugo posted a March 10, 1882 example from Kentucky.
Here's one on Jan. 18, 1882 (Wed.) from West Virginia.
The Weekly Register, Point Pleasant, West Va. p. 2 col. 4:

"Mountain Dew, my boy, is the liquid representative of a fiery furnace; it is the exilir of a West Virginia Legislator's life; he would rather do without his dinner than his Mountain Dew, and whenever he wants to paint the town red or paralyze things by making a flowery speech, he gets gloriously full of Mountain Dew."

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026817/1882-01-18/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1882&index=0&rows=20&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=paint+red+town&proxdistance=5&date2=1882&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=paint+the+town+red&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

Stephen Goranson
http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org