Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a euph. for Christ!; usu. in mild oaths.

1830		Painseville Tel. 15 June 3/2: Oh! Crackee what luck! [DA].
1833		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 14 n.p.: Zounds! [...] By-stall cracky! Gory mighty!
1832		Satirist (London) 24 June 202/2: ’Tis true that poor Kate had a wearisome trade, / When crying ‘Oh Cracky, Sirs! nuts come and buy!’.
1841		N. Carolina Standard (Raleigh, NC) 23 June 4/1: Oh! Crackee! good people, what changes we know!
1849		W.C. Hall ‘Mike Hooter’s Fight with the “Bar”’ in Spirit of the Times 10 Nov. (N.Y.) 452: Cracky! didn’t he travel!
1858		Preble Co. Democrat (Eaton, OH) 15 Apr. 🌐 By cracky, we did slide.
1851		‘How Sally Hooter Got Snake-Bit’ in T.A. Burke Polly Peablossom’s Wedding 68: Cracky! it’s worse nor er young earthquake – beats h–ll!
1865		‘Scolding Wife’ Bob Smith’s Clown Song and Joke Bk 45: Oh, cracky! oh dear.
1873		W.H. Thomes Slaver’s Adventures 29: O, crackee; dat no pay me. Gib me thirty dollars, and I put ’em aboard.
1887		H. Frederic Seth’s Brother’s Wife 296: By Cracky! [...] don’t it beat natur’!
1887		A.C. Gunter Mr Barnes of N.Y. 56: Cracky! It is Sally Spotts!
1892		J.C. Duval Young Explorers 10: ‘Crackey!’ exclaimed the man in affected astonishment.
1897		(con. 1860s) W.E. Barton Hero in Homespun 19: By cracky, Jack!
1897		J. London ‘In a Far Country’ Complete Short Stories (1993) I 212: ‘Sufferin’ cracky!’ cried another of the party. ‘No whites?’.
1903		Ade ‘Mr Lindsay on “San Jewan”’ in In Babel 251: Well, to see ’em cavortin’ around [...] and gassin’ in front of every store, you’d think, by cracky, that every one of ’em had chawed up a thousand o’ them Spanish generals.
1910		O. Johnson Varmint 70: Cracky, what a prize!
1914		T.A. Dorgan Indoor Sports 3 Mar. [synd. cartoon] By crackey I’ll wager yer out with Morgan and them fellers.
1916		R. Service ‘The Odyssey of ’Erbert ’Iggins’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 48: By cracky! old feller, they’ve seen us.
1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 82: By cracky! I like somebody with good sense to talk to.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Tom, Dick, or Harry’ Nightmare Town (2001) 246: By cracky, I think maybe you’re right.
c.1935		‘The Rubber Salesman’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 50: Yep, by cracky the dern things are pesty at times.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 117: Like it or lump it, by crackey you’ll foller it.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 30 Oct. [synd. col.] Lots of the Representatives from the corn bread and by-cracky belts haven’t got the ‘moxie’ to nix a blue nose measure.
1957		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 223: Cabbages and onions and turning up sod, / You may think I made this up but I didn’t by cracky!