1857, The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville, included in The Portable North American Indian Reader, New York: Penguin Books, 1977, page 524, It is said that when the tidings were brought him, he was ashore sitting beneath a hemlock eating his dinner of venison - and as the tidings were told him, after the first start he kept on eating, but slowly and deliberately, chewing the wild news with the wild meat, as if both together, turned to chyle, together should sinew him to his intent.
Source: wiktionary