shindig

[George Thompson]

This word was kicked about back in March.  I have been on leave, and
have fallen behind in all my email.  It appears that the earliest
appearance on record of the word at present is 1842?

1837:   [a watchman,] hearing a bit of a shindy at a house occupied by
a couple of 'darkies,' [entered, and] found both husband and wife
pretty well 'how come you so'
New York Times, January 9, 1837, p. 3, col. 1  (Note that this is not
the present-day NYTimes, which began publication in 1851.)

1842:   [trial arising from a brawl in a dance house, 9th Ave. and 42nd
St., December 13, 1841:] this 'shindig' as it was called, was a scene
of great violence, riot and disorder.  New-York Daily Tribune, May 10,
1842, p. 3, col. 1

I have a note that Dictionary of American English has something,
perhaps under "shindy", from 1829.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.