Antedating of Wild West

[Baker, John]

        M-W has 1844 for "Wild West," the western United States in its
frontier period characterized by roughness and lawlessness.  It goes
back at least to W. Faux, Memorable Days in America 230 (1823) (Google
Books):

General Boon now lives in solitude 600 miles up the remote Missouri. He
is 80 years old, very active, very poor, a hunter and a recluse by
choice, and trains up his sons in the same path, feeling more happiness
than he possibly could in society, where he would have lived and died,
if he had willed it, full of scars, and honours, and days. His parents
were always poor; his disposition is kind and hospitable; his manners
simple and gentle ; preferring to live meanly and rudely as a hardy
hunter and squatter, wanting nothing but what nature gives him, and his
own hands get him. He sleeps on a bear-skin, and clothes himself in
dressed deer-skin, and though shy, is kind to intruding strangers. The
western country is indebted to him, as he leads the way into the best
spots of the wilderness. He was the first white man in Old Kentucky, and
the wide, wild west is full of his licks.


John Baker

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