# The Whig log cabin, with cider outside and the door left open, 1840

Thomas Sinclair of Philadelphia lithographed and published this 1840 Whig print of William Henry Harrison greeting a one-legged veteran outside a log cabin, with a "Harrison & Tyler" flag, hard-cider barrels, and a ploughing farmer.

- Home
- Archive
- The Whig log cabin, with cider outside and the door left open, 1840

      'This log cabin was the first building erected on the North Bend', Whig print by T. Sinclair, 1840

      The Whig log cabin, with cider outside and the door left open, 1840
      An 1840 Whig print by Thomas Sinclair shows Harrison at a log cabin with hard cider and a wounded Tippecanoe veteran. The cabin was the Whig emblem.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Plain folksTransfer
      Date1840Made byWhig campaign for William Henry Harrison; lithographed and published by Thomas Sinclair, PhiladelphiaMediumPrintCountryUnited StatesRegimeVan Buren AdministrationSourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division , retrieved October 2, 2026SourcePublic domain: published 1840, US; LOC: "No known restrictions on publication." Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-5550. LOC rights: "No known restrictions on publication."
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Thomas Sinclair of Philadelphia lithographed and published this 1840 Whig print of William Henry Harrison greeting a one-legged veteran outside a log cabin, with a "Harrison & Tyler" flag, hard-cider barrels, and a ploughing farmer.

## What the print shows

Harrison stands in civilian clothes at the door of a log cabin and takes the hand of a soldier who has lost a leg. A flag lettered for Harrison and Tyler flies over the roof, its staff topped with a liberty cap. A coonskin hangs on the wall. Two barrels are marked for hard cider. Behind them a farmer works a plough, and Harrison's dog greets the visitor too. A long caption explains all of it, and ends with a joke.

This Log Cabin was the first building erected on the North Bend of the beautiful Ohio River, with the barrel of Cider outside and the door always open to the traveller. The wounded Soldier is one of Gen. Harrison's comrades, meeting him after his celebrated Victory at Tippecanoe [...]

Lith.& Published by T. Sinclair, N° 79 S. Third St. Phil[a]

Part of the FRAME transcription, read from the Library of Congress master. The caption runs on about the dog's tail, which "the lookeron" is told he can see shake. Full record at propagandaarchive.org.

## Who made it

Thomas Sinclair of Philadelphia lithographed and published the sheet, at 79 South Third Street. The archive credits it to the Whig campaign for Harrison and dates it to 1840, under Martin Van Buren's administration.

## How to read it

The archive tags it for plain folks and transfer, and the two work together. Cabin, cider, plough, and coonskin say that the candidate lives as an ordinary farmer does. The wounded comrade and the word "Tippecanoe" attach a battlefield reputation to that farmhouse. The caption does the rest: an open door, a welcome for any traveller. What the sheet does not show is any statement of what Harrison would do with the Treasury, the Bank question, or anything else Van Buren's side was arguing about that year.

The other side saw the cabin coming. An unsigned broadside printed in New Orleans the same year redrew the cabin as a trap baited with hard cider, set to catch voters. Read the two together and the 1840 campaign makes sense as a fight over a picture. One party built an emblem and the other tried to turn it inside out. Neither print is an argument about government. Both are evidence of a country where printers could sell either picture freely.

For the other campaigns of the century, see the hub on presidential campaign print, 1800 to 1900.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, 'This log cabin was the first building erected on the North Bend', Whig print by T. Sinclair, 1840. Whig campaign for William Henry Harrison; lithographed and published by Thomas Sinclair, Philadelphia.

- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-5550. loc.gov/pictures/item/2008661360, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain, no known restrictions on publication.

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/harrison-north-bend-log-cabin-sinclair-1840/