Firewood has been the fuel of choice for most of human history; charcoal has also been used, it is a derivative of firewood and more expensive. Where firewood was not available or too expensive, agricultural residue or peat or dung may be used as a fuel if it were available. Coal was mostly ignored, but did find use in various industries centuries before it is known to be used in homes, particularly in Britain. The difficulty with most grades of coal is the smoke that is released when it is burned. Two broad categories for the grades of coal are soft and hard, with the hard type producing little smoke. A particular grade of hard coal called anthracite releases almost no smoke. It was noted in 16th century England when people were using open hearths in their homes that soft coals were despised, even the smoke from soft coal burning at nearby industry; coal smoke is more irritating and tends to disperse lower than wood smoke; where anthracite was close by some people had begun to burn it on their hearths.
All coal grades have a high flash point, and a coal fire usually begins with firewood, then adding the coal only after the fire is hot. Hard coal needs combustion air to filter up from below in order to keep it burning, therefore hard coal fires on open hearths used large pieces that would have gaps between the pieces in the pile, though the fire was on the floor enough ground level air could be sucked in to keep the fire burning. Sometime in the 16th and 17th century England metal grates/baskets were used to elevate the coal, which also made tending and removing ash easier, and probably made hard coal fires much easier to keep burning.
The North American colonies did not adopt coal as a fuel as quickly as those in the British isles due to the abundance of locally acquired firewood and expense of importing British coal and transporting American coal from inland. Once the forests near the east coast cities were cut down and firewood became expensive coal imports from the British isles were relied on. Imports continued until steam locomotives were able to bring North American coal to the cities. It seems that the knowledge of how to burn hard (particularly anthracite) coal in a fire did not make its way to the North American colonies, and may not have been burned in England outside of the regions where it was mined. In North America, Jesse Fell is attributed the success at figuring out how to keep a fire of 'stone coal', a type of hard coal, burning on an open fireplace grate in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania on February the 11th of 1806. Although 'grate' is mentioned the hearth was/is masonry on three sides that supported iron bars for the bottom and front that was/is the grate, being of a box shaped bin. An internet search should give links to photos of the 'grate' he supposedly used.
In Scandinavia, Holland, and Germany, intense cold and scarce fuel had fostered early development of efficient stoves. Immigrants from those countries who settled in the Middle Colonies [of North America] brought the molds for casting stoves with them. They had the most comfortable homes in the colonies, with stoves made most commonly of cast iron but sometimes of sheet metal or decorated tile and brick. Although travelers in the German and Dutch colonies noted their comfort and efficiency, these stoves remained ethnic peculiarities until the nineteenth century. --from the book "Never Done: A History of American Housework" by Susan Strasser
These Colonial era ethnic peculiarities were likely not air tight, but the restricted air flow to the fire reduced the amount of room air that passed through the fire and up the chimney, also the metal of the stove enabled it to radiate more energy and convect heat from the fire. In the early AD 19th century, cast iron stove plates began to be produced in larger quantities. These stove plates were cast from iron ore using blast furnaces. The molten iron were poured into moulds that were impressed into sand laid out on the floor with the tops being open to the air, producing thick plates that would later be fitted and assembled.
The modern blast furnace is supposed to have originated in the Rhine provinces about the beginning of the fourteenth century, but whether in France, Germany or Belgium is not clear. One hundred years later, in 1409, there was a blast furnace in the valley of Massavaux, in France, and it is claimed by Landrin that there were many blast furnaces in France about 1450. The exact date of the erection of the first blast furnace in England is unknown, but it was along in the fifteenth century. The first attempt to make pig iron in the United States was in 1645, at Lynn, Massachusetts. We see, therefore, that, although iron melted by charcoal in the old Catalan forges was used many hundreds of years ago, cast iron or pig iron is of comparative recent origin, and may be said is yet in its infancy. -- from the The ABC of Iron by Chas. W. Sisson, 1893 (page 11)
Iron ores can be reduced by a blast furnace to produce pig iron.
In the reduction of the ores the fuel may be charcoal, coke, block coal or anthracite coal. Charcoal is freer from impurities than any of the fuels and has been used from the earliest times. Experiments were begun in 1630 with coal and coke, but it was not until 1735 that any degree of success was attained. The first successful blast with coke as fuel was made by Abraham Darby, of Shropshire, at his furnace at Coalbrookdale, England, in the year 1735. The first successful manufacture of pig iron with anthracite coal was by George Crane, and Englishman, at Yniscedirin, in Wales, in 1837. The blast used in furnaces was cold, until 1825, when James Beaumont, of Scotland, invented the hot blast now in general use all over the world. -- from the The ABC of Iron by Chas. W. Sisson, 1893 (page 12)
Americans bought and used stoves in large numbers well before there was any distinct industry dedicated to their design, manufacture, and supply. Instead, stoves and stove plates were simply a major product of rural, charcoal-fueled iron furnaces, particularly those in southeast Pennsylvania and southwest New Jersey. When sold in fully assembled form, they found a strictly local market (because of the cost and difficulty of transporting heavy, bulky, and surprisingly fragile cast-iron items by wagon), but they gained much wider distribution to cities and towns on navigable waterways along the East Coast in the more convenient form of flat-packed plates for assembly, finishing, and marketing by local manufacturers and dealers. In Philadelphia, the center of the district where most stove plate was made and stove use first became commonplace, there were just two pattern makers and three stove finishers recorded in the early 1820s. Another two firms made stoves alongside other metal products. -- from Inventing the U.S. Stove Industry, c.1815-1875: Making and Selling the First Universal Consumer Durable by Howell J. Harris, in section 'In the Beginning: The Blast-Furnace Era'