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