Abijah Smith & Company. Established 1807 by Abijah Smith, who had bought 75 acres here on Ransom Creek and was later joined by his brother John. Their shipments of coal by ark down the Susquehanna, begun in 1807, continued for 20 years. This company was, in 1818, the first to extract Pennsylvania coal by powder blasting. In the same family almost 70 years, it was considered the first commercially successful U.S. anthracite firm.