antedating "jerry" building 1859; jerry built 1860

[Stephen Goranson]

OED has 1869 for jerry-built; 1885 for jerry building

1859 The New York Herald, (New York, NY) Thursday, November 10, 1859;
pg. 4; col F [19th C US Newspapers]
     The Great Eastern and Her Future Liverpool Opinion of the Big Ship
Category: Shipping news [19th C US Newspapers]
[from the Liverpool Albion, Oct.22]
...the decks...will have to be replaced...her sleeping cabins are wretched,
dark, badly ventilated dens, and must all come down. In short, she is nothing
more nor less than a gigantic imposture below, a fit sample of Thames "jerry"
building fixings, the whole demonstrating that limited liability can coexist
with unlimited folly and extravagance....Liverpool or Clyde shipbuilders would
never have turned out such work.

1860 Tom Rocket &c. &c. &c. (London: Ward and Lock, 1860) By Albany de Grenier
Fonblanque, Jun. [Google Books full view] in the story "Sebastopol Villa"
[according to the front matter, reprinted from a periodical] pages 63-4:
He had tried other building speculations, had run up other "jerry-built" houses,
and had failed utterly, hopelessly. Mr. Peter Specie seized his houses,
including Sebastopol Villa, for the ground rent, and let them to [p. 64] people
who believed in cheap tenements.

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

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