"There was almost a continuous stream of four or six horse wagons laden with merchandise, going west and returning with the product of the Ohio Valley to supply the eastern cities. These wagons journeyed mostly between Pittsburg and Philadelphia and Baltimore. The wagoners generally stopped at a wayside inn which was less expensive than at the inns in the villages. Wagoners cared little for style but demanded an abundance while the stage-coach passengers demanded both. The wagoner invariably slept on a bunk which he carried with him and which he laid on the floor of the big bar-room and office of the country hotel. Stage drivers and their passengers stopped at the best hotels and paid higher prices. For the purpose of feeding his horses in the public square, the wagoner carried a long trough which at night he fastened with special irons to the tongue of the wagon.... An old gentleman told the writer that he had once seen 52 wagons in an unbroken line going towards Pittsburg on this pike. They were Conestoga wagons with great bowed beds covered with canvas, and none of them were drawn by less than four, while many of them had six horses. The old fashioned public square which kept them over night must have been a good sized one. The public squares on this turnpike were usually from three to four hundred feet long and from two to three hundred feet wide. Some of the older villages had two squares separated a short distance from each other, but this was generally brought about by a rivalry among two factions when the town was first laid out." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "When a village was laid out along the pike there was usually a public square in its center, and at least two corners of this public square were set apart for taverns. This square generally called a diamond, was not intended as a place of ornament as it usually is now, but was for special purposes. There the wagons laden with freight stood over night, and as a general rule in all kinds of weather, the horses were blanketed, fed and bedded in the public square. Upon these wagons were transported nearly all the goods between Philadelphia and Pittsburg." _Boucher's Century and a half of Pittsburg._ "An account has been furnished us by Mr. Alexander Thompson, who resides on the Turnpike road four miles and a half from Pittsburgh, from which it appears, that from the 1st of January, 1815 to the 31st of December 1815, inclusive, 5,800 road waggons, laden with merchandize &c. passed his farm for Pittsburgh. The greater part of these waggons returned loaded with cordage, salt petre, &c. to the east of the mountains. The waggons with iron from the Juniata and other iron works, are not included in the above." _Gazette, Jan. 27, 1816._