From where comes the saying "Stop pulling my chain"?

In the olden days of mining they had a one hole potty wagon. Every miner carried a small length of chain to lay across the track on each side of the wheel to keep the potty wagon still and keep the wagon from being sent through the total darkness to wherever down the line as the miner did his bizzness. Hence came the phrase, "Don't pull my chain" or "Don't jerk my chain." or "Who pulled your chain?"

http://historyasis.blogspot.com/2011/05/etymology-dont-pull-my-chain.html

Miners from the "olden days" might well asked each other not to pull their chains, and I'm sure prisoners in chain gangs would have asked the same.

However, the phrase "don't yank my chain" became a popular idiom in the 1980s and is just a way of saying "if you annoy me I am liable to snap as though you'd pulled the chain of a wild animal".
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pull