Sometime around 1803, Seth D. Plum bought a house on Broad Street in Meriden, Connecticut. Conveniently located along the route of the new Meriden turnpike, which opened in 1799, it served as a tavern for many years. Meriden was a busy stopover, long known as the halfway point on the road between Hartford and New Haven. As for Seth Plum, he appears to have been an enterprising who achieved a certain level of prosperity, for he also operated a tin shop in Meriden from about 1808 to 1835.

The signboard for Plum's tavern is a fine example of the most popular type of American tavern sign from around the middle of the eighteenth century until the mid-1820s or so. A scrolled and framed painted pine plank set in a vertical orientation between two turned posts, it incorporates design elements that were also typical of the architecture and furniture of the period. The coach and horses are particularly engaging, especially the way in which the horses are arranged one slightly in front of the other, with multiple pairs of legs giving the impression of rapid movement.

Signboards have a long history in both North America and Europe. In 1644 the General Court of Connecticut ordered all towns in the colony to provide a place where travelers and strangers could obtain food and lodging. Following English tradition, inns and taverns were prominently marked with painted signs, often suspended between two high posts as close as possible to the road. At the same time, hanging signs had become subject to regulation in several European cities because of their ever-expanding numbers. A few years after London's Great Fire of 1666, for example, an ordinance was enacted that required signboards to be affixed to the walls of buildings instead of projecting out into the streets. Apparently, the efforts of merchants and tradesmen to continually outdo one another in order to attract business had resulted in a dense, overhead canopy that clogged narrow urban streets and threatened pedestrians.

Connecticut supported a large number of taverns and inns in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because of its extensive network of roads and the heavy traffic generated by its proximity to several urban areas in New England and New York. In 1800 more than 650 licensed innkeepers were operating there. Consequently the state was something of a center for signboard production and ornamental painting. It has been estimated that more than 5,000 signs were used by taverns, inns, and hotels in Connecticut between 1750 and 1850. Of these, only about one hundred survive today.

Ralph Sessions, "S.D. Plum Tavern Sign," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 545–546.

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