Mountain Entrepreneurs

Self-sufficiency and inventiveness were the hallmark of many of Haywood’s early residents. Sophie Campbell, living in what is today Maggie Valley, ran a business making pipes and bowls. She had no road to her house, so her customers had to walk in to buy her wares. It is possible that Campbell, like the Cherokee Indians, used kaolin, a white soft clay found in abundance in the county, to make her pipes.

Colonel Joseph Cathey, whose family has lived for more than two centuries in the Bethel community, was a Haywood man of many skills. Having studied law, economics, medicine, and theology, he turned his hand to being a miller, merchant, farmer, state legislator, and family physician over his 71 years of life. Colonel Cathey ran Cathey’s Store and a mill at the forks of the Pigeon River for more than 30 years, providing the community food, medicine, clothing, books, and farming equipment.

Photographs courtesy of Doris Cathey, The Haywood County Library Digital Collection