antedating of "sissy" 1879

[Sam Clements]

OED has 1887.  M-W 1891.

Newspaperarchive incorrectly attributes the following to the Butte(MT) Miner, but it is actually--

5 April, 1879  _Burlington(IA) Weekly Hawkeye 6/4

(Reprinted from the Boston Herald)

Titled:Concord Reminiscences/About Thoreau, Hawthorne and Emerson.

<<Julian Hawthorne( note-Nathaniel's son-ed.) came home from Italy when a very small boy.  He wore long curls, and the Concord boys plagued him in the usual tough way of boys.  They called him "Sissy" and "Yankee Doodle," and finally they ridiculed the poor lad till he petitioned for a barber to cut off his locks.>>

A second, interesting cite is from 
2 Nov. 1882  _Ft. Wayne(IN) Daily Gazette_  4/5  (but reprinted from the Cincinnati Enquirer.  Titled "A Man with a Bracelet"

<<It is no concern of mine what men wear.  Women's dress is my topic.  But I must be permitted to say, casually, that it makes me sick to see a man with a bracelet on his wrist.  Only once have I been made to endure the nauseous sight.  It was at the Fifth Avenue theater.  The offender was a pretty, sissy young fellow, in an evening suit that evidently owed much of its shapeliness to padding on the shoulders, if not to lacing at the waist.  The bracelet was a wide band of gold color and enamel and was clasped directly under the cuff.  He had no idea of being ashamed of the femininity which he was displaying, but repeatedly rested his head on his hand in a way to exhibit the bracelet.--New York corr. Cincinnati Enquirer.>>

SC