Green’s Dictionary of Slang

annoyance, irritation, a fuss; also as adj. (see cite 1869).

1766		Maryland Gaz. (Annapolis, MD) 10 Apr. 2/1: Arra, what a Botheration Englishmen make about Liberty and Property, and yet their Bastards can’t Inherit.
1788		Morris et al. ‘Pat-Riot’ in Festival of Anacreon (1810) 36: What charming confusion! what fine botheration.
a.1790		C. Dibdin ‘Meum and Tuum’ in Collection of Songs II 166: Then from such botheration in pity release us.
1797		Sporting Mag. Mar. IX 342/1: After a long botheration [...] Mr. Lucius Concannon was convicted.
1801		C. Dibdin Yngr Song Smith 139: I met him with his green bag full of botheration.
1806		G. Colman Yngr John Bull IV i: There’ll be a big botheration at the Manor-house!
1808		‘Paddy MacShane’s Seven Ages’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 511: If my own botheration don’t alter my plan, I’ll sing seven lines of a tight Irishman.
1810		‘Bundles of Truth’ in Batchelar’s Jovial Fellows Collection of Songs 5: Lawyers deal in botheration.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 170: ‘Oh,’ says Pat, ’boderation you blundering mug’’.
c.1815		J.K. Paulding Bucktails (1847) V ii: So, Mister Whack, you’re in a pretty sort of a botheration.
1825		‘This London, Agrah! is the Devil’s Own Shop’ in Universal Songster II 148: ’Tis all botheration from bottom to top.
1828		N.-Y. Flagellator 6 Sept. 31/2: ‘What a great deal of fatigue and botheration it would have saved’.
1831		Mr Mathews’ Comic Annual 14: The judges they deal out the oddest of law, / Mix’d up wid queer blarney, boderation and jaw.
1840		Lytton Money III iii: Rates, taxes, riddles and botheration!
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 21 Mar. 2/5: Hub, bubboo, boderatlon, bad luck to the knot of ye, ye dirty spalpeens.
1851		‘Drinking Song’ in Irish Songster 40: Musha, what botheration.
1853		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Oct. 62/1: I won’t change it — ’twould be botheration.
1861		R.F. Burton City of the Saints 3: The political necessity for another ‘Indian botheration,’ as editors call it.
1863		Urbana Union (OH) 17 June 3/5: The damned Bobolition, ’Mancipation and Secession, am going to run de niggr in de ground [...] What’s de use of dis jangulation fightin', Boderation to a country so forlorn.
1869		Western Gaz. 14 May 3/2: The Yankee seems to talk big about [...] his botheration war with the South.
1871		Petroleum Centre Dly Record (PA) 22 Dec. 2/3: Two pugilists are battling, / Others cutting didoes — / What a botheration!
1873		C. Rampini Letters from Jamaica 37: Heaben [...] Nothing to do, no work, no boderation.
1875		Sunbury American 23 July 3/3: Our name is again in that long list of ‘boderation candidates’.
1880		Dodge City Times (KS) 6 Mar. 6/3: The Czar [...] could of got far more ease and amusement out of life if he had handed all the botheration of government over to his brother.
1894		Ranch (N. Yakima, WA) 20 Jan. 14/1: The bright, glossy, thick and firm leaves are freer from insect and disease botheration than any of the European sorts.
1900		Sporting Times 17 Mar. 1/3: The botheration of being tried for manslaughter when one has merely adjudicated on a boxing match.
1908		L. Doyle Ballygullion 40: Bad cess to it, Molly [...] here’s more botheration.
1908		Deseret Farmer (Provo, UT) 11 July 5/1: The job was done [...] without going through all the turmoil of graft and plander, delay and botheration.
1917		Clay City Times (KY) 18 Oct. 2/3: The botheration and confusion of having the walls of your place of business lined with telephones.
1922		Jasper News (KS) 19 Jan. 7/1: Today the famer [...] is doomed to endless botheration.
1927		P. O’Donnell Islanders (1933) 29: ‘The devil take them for hens,’ Manus growled [...] ‘They’re only a botheration,’ Charlie said. ‘A botheration? They’re a curse!’.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 282: Such a botheration!
1945		D. Bolster Roll On My Twelve 44: I’ll take care o’ all them botherations for you.
1952		S. Selvon Brighter Sun 61: Nigger is ah nation, / Dey full of bodderation.
1959		A. Salkey Quality of Violence (1978) 14: Why you cause me worry-head and all the botheration?
1983		R. Abrahams Man-of-Words in the West Indies 124: Inappropriateness from [...] calling someone’s name before the friendship is established to making boderation (starting fights).
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 155: I did not get a chance to tell Abie about Cara’s ‘botheration’.
1998		(con. 1940s) P. Cumper One Bright Child 53: Such a botheration.
2001		(con. 1981) A. Wheatle East of Acre Lane 176: I’ve got nuff boderation ’pon my mind.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 160: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Botheration.