Find A Grave Memorial# 41214555
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He was the pioneer in the use of anthracite coal, lived in Plymouth or Kingston, Pa.
"The Smith brothers, originally from Connecticut, came to Pennsylvania to make their fortune in 1806. They spent the next year mining fifty tons of anthracite at a small community near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In November, the brothers acquired a flatbed boat, called an ark, for $24. Their plan was to travel down the Susquehanna River to Columbia in Lancaster County, where they hoped to interest Pennsylvania Dutch farmers and merchants in this new type of fuel. Anthracite, they claimed, burned cheaper and longer than wood. It was a tough sell. People were quite skeptical about using "black stones" in their fireplaces. The Smiths were forced to abandon their coal, unsold, by the river."
Abijah Smith's Mine
Abijah Smith was born in Derby, Connecticut, about 1763, where he married and fathered numerous children. He worked as a blacksmith or harness maker. In 1804, he advertised: "For sale by Abijah Smith, at Derby Landing, Skirting and Bridle leather, of the first quality, May 7, 1804.
It is not known exactly why Smith left Derby for the Wyoming Valley, but one journalist reporting in 1901 related an anecdote that had been passed down through the years. "The story is that Abijah Smith heard through some man, who had been traveling in Pennsylvania, and who passing through Derby on his way home stopped at Smith's blacksmith shop to have his horse shod, about black stone in Pennsylvania that would burn. The result of this conversation was that Smith made a trip to Pennsylvania and eventually located there ... He left Derby in 1806 and in 1807 mined 56 tons of coal in Plymouth, Pa. at the old mine now rented to the Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Co., and known as the Smith red ash coal."
According to Hendrick B. Wright, in the fall of 1807, Abijah Smith purchased an ark from John P. Arndt, a Wilkes-Barre merchant, which Arndt had used for the transportation of plaster. Smith floated the ark from Wilkes-Barre to Plymouth, loaded it with about fifty tons of anthracite coal, and shipped it to Columbia, in Lancaster County. According to Wright:
"...this was probably the first cargo of anthracite coal that was ever ordered for sale in this or any country. The trade of 1807 was fifty tons ... Abijah Smith therefore, of Plymouth, was the pioneer in the coal business. Anthracite coal had been used before 1807, in this valley and elsewhere, in small quantities in furnaces, with an air blast; but the traffic in coal as an article of general use, was commenced by Abijah Smith, of Plymouth."