A very long period. The Knickerbocker Magazine (1836) has “a dog’s age”: vii. 17 (Jan.).
1845. We won’t hear the eend of this bis’ness for a coon’s age, you see if we do.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Chronicles of Pineville,’ p. 72 (Phila.).
1845. He can talk more sense in a minute than old Rogers can understand in a coon’s age.—Id., p. 128.
1846. Jim Clark has gone to the woods for fat pine, and Peggy Willet is along to take a lite for him,—they’ve been gone a coon’s age.—W. T. Porter, ed., ‘A Quarter Race in Kentucky,’ etc., p. 85.
1848. I never did like this Yanky way of married people livin’ all over creation without seein one another more’n once in a coon’s age.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 16 (Phila.).
1851. We had not seen the amount of cash mentioned as lost, in a “coon’s age.”—J. J. Hooper, ‘Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs,’ &c., p. 155 (Phila.).
1851. “That’s the best red eye I’ve swallered in er coon’s age,” said the speaker, after bolting a caulker.—‘Polly Peablossom’s Wedding,’ &c., p. 74.
1851. This child hain’t had that much money in a coon’s age.—Id., p. 99.
1853. Hello, old hoss, whar hev you been this coon’s age?—S. A. Hammett (‘Philip Paxton’), ‘A Stray Yankee in Texas,’ p. 201.
