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1835 Salem (Mass.) Gaz. 23 Jan. 3/2 Loco Foco, or self-igniting Segars. This is the name of an article prepared in New York. They possess the peculiar property of igniting themselves.

1835 U.S. Tel. 25 Sept. 1019/3 (advt.) Loco Foco matches. A new article for lighting segars, &c.

1835 P. Hone Diary 26 Oct. (1889) I. 168 The malcontents..each producing from his pocket a tallow-candle..and a loco-foco to ignite it, soon brought matters to light again.

1839 Jrnl. Franklin Inst. 24 116 We were offered lately in the streets of Pittsburgh a kind of loco-foco matches which were new to us... They ignite by friction and burn as if containing phosphorus.

1842 W. T. Brande Dict. Sci., Lit. & Art 672/2 Lucifers (which in America are termed locofocos).

1859 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) (at cited word) In 1834 John Marck opened a store in Park Row, New York, and drew public attention to two novelties. One was champagne wine drawn like soda water from a ‘fountain’; the other was a self-lighting cigar, with a match composition on the end. These he called ‘Loco-foco’ cigars.

1895 H. C. Castellanos New Orleans as it Was v. 81 Mariquita was married at that time to a middle-aged man, who peddled flints and spunk among cigar smokers (loco-foco matches being then an uninvented luxury), around the markets and the levee front.

1947 P. S. Foner Hist. Labor Movement in U.S. I. ix. 154 Hoping to stop the meeting they [sc. the Tammany supporters] turned off the gas, but the workers produced ‘loco-foco’ matches to light candles and went on to nominate a list of anti-monopoly candidates.

1990 C. Johnson Middle Passage 14 Papa offered me a cigar, but my hands trembled so violently that I used four locofocos before the flame took to the end.

2001 R. D. Outram Dove Legend & Other Poems 132 We will come to the point;..Which may prove to be an unexploded locofoco cigar.

2004 V. Goldenbrook Stonebird ii. 10 He relights his smoke with what he calls a loco-foco match.