Polk & Co. Going Up Salt River (pro-Clay cartoon), 1844

Cartoon of a dinghy towed by the 'Steamer Ballot Box' up Salt River, carrying Van Buren (drawn with a furry animal body; LOC's summary does not describe it), Benton, Dallas and Jackson, with Polk as a long-necked bird perched on the stern. Tell: opponents drawn as animals, with Polk's 'don't give up the ship' crew shown as stranded, is name-calling by ridicule; 'Salt River' as a place of political failure is a period joke, not a claim of momentum.

Date: 1844
Period: Pre-1914
Made by: Drawn by H. Bucholzer; lithographed and published by James Baillie, New York
Region: North America
Country: United States
Medium: Cartoon
Issuer type: Media
Regime: Tyler Administration
Leader: John Tyler
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Theme: Elections and party politics
Event: 1844 US Election
Techniques: Name-calling
Source: Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, retrieved October 2, 2026
Rights: Public domain: published 1844, US; LOC rights note: "No known restrictions on publication."
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. (item 2008661435)

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

We've got up so far that the water grows shallow. I think I could get out & wade now.
Polk.
I never sailed so far up this river before. We must be near the head of navigation.
By the eternal! Polk. don't give up the ship.
Benton.
Dallas
Van Buren.
Jackson.
STEAMER BALLOT BOX.

Lithography & print Coloring on reasonable terms by James Baillie No 33 Spruce St New York.
POLK & Co. GOING UP SALT RIVER.
Entered according to an act of Congress in the Year 1844 by James Baillie in the Clerk's [illegible] of the District Court of the South. Dist. of N.Y.

The copyright line is faint and partly [illegible]; the handwritten clerk's deposit note below it is not part of the printed text.