The complete success of Judge Fell’s experiment was soon noised abroad, and a new era of usefulness for anthracite coal set in. From Wilkes Barre up and down the entire Wyoming valley fireplaces for wood were discarded and grates were set for the burning of the new domestic fuel. This was followed, not long after, by the introduction of stoves, so that by 1820, says Stewart Pearce in his “Annals of Luzerne County,” grates and coal stoves were in general use throughout the valley, coal for domestic purposes selling at three dollars per ton. At the time of Judge Fell’s experiment there was no outside market for the product of the mines of the Wyoming valley. The distances to the large cities and manufacturing centres were too great, the means of transportation too rude, and the knowledge of the use of anthracite too limited, to warrant any serious effort to create a foreign market for it. The attempt had nevertheless been made in 1807 by Abijah Smith, who shipped an ark-load of coal down the Susquehanna River to Columbia, and was obliged to leave it there unsold. In 1808 the experiment was repeated by Abijah and his brother John, who, profiting by the success of Judge Fell’s late experiment, took with them an iron grate, set it up at Columbia, and proceeded to demonstrate to the doubting inhabitants the practical value of their coal as a domestic fuel. The venture proved successful, and after this they found no difficulty in selling at the river towns all the coal they could mine. After 1812 they extended their trade by running their coal to Havre de Grace, and sending it thence by schooner to New York. The success which attended the efforts of the Smiths appears to have been an inducement to other enterprising citizens of the Wyoming valley to embark in the coal trade, and in 1813 and 1814 Colonel George M. Hollenback, Colonel Lord Butler, Joseph Wright, Esq., and Crandal Wilcox all engaged in the mining and shipping of coal. They sent the product of the mines down the river in arks, and up to 1830 85,000 tons had been mined in the valley for such shipment. After that year coal was sent by the North Branch Canal just completed to Nanticoke, and in 1846 the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad pierced the valley, and opened a new era in transportation. So it came about that this region, which in 1807 opened the anthracite coal trade with a shipment of fifty-five tons, sent to market in 1887 a grand total of 19,684,929 tons. [Illustration: MAP _SHOWING_ ·ANTHRACITE·COAL·FIELDS· -_OF_- ·PENNSYLVANIA·]