Smoke Camp Crafts was founded by Dot Montgillion in 1978 shortly after she and her husband Bob Montgillion moved to Smoke Camp Road in Weston, WV. She had a lifelong interest in botany, gardening and herbal medicine . Her signature “Road Kill Jam," featuring apples, raspberries and black walnuts, reflects her sense of humor and deep sense of place. She called herself a "West Virginian by-choice," and she was proud to be living in the most beautiful place on earth.
Dot and her husband Bob were living in Beltsville, Maryland and working at the USDA. Dot was studying methods of sterilizing cannabis seeds and enjoying time working with Dr. Duke, herbalist extraordinaire and author The Green Pharmacy and Dr. Duke’s Essential Herbs. His work at the USDA culminated in Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical databases that contain in-depth plant, chemical, bioactivity, and ethnobotany information pertinent to pharmaceutical, nutritional, and biomedical research, as well alternative therapies and herbal product research. Needless to say, Dot was more than inspired by Dr. Duke and her botany work and moved to West Virginia as a back-to-the-lander around 1975. she began learning the ways of the land and how to grow and use herbs, from her older neighbors on Smoke Camp Road. She started a small business out of the 1800s cabin on her farm. That cabin is still standing at the end of Smoke Camp Road and it's still featured in Smoke Camp Crafts’ logo. Dot had wide ranging interests and immense creative capacity, as reflected by the hundreds of products in her product line. Dot also published a book called “Modern Uses of Traditional Herbs.”
Inspired by Dot's tea and jelly product line, we now produce potted starter plants and seeds of all of the termperate crops Dot used in her formulations, ranging from anise hyssop to wormwood. We are also now offering native pollinator plants and seeds.
Native Pollinator Plants & Seeds
Species
Owner
Production Manager
Productiion & Administration Manager
Plant Production Manager
Smoke Camp Crafts runs a farm-based business as a vehicle for preserving biodiversity and empowering community members to realize their potential as producers. We currently save seeds and promote the spread of native populations of plants on Smoke Camp Crafts' land and the land of other growers that we work with. A small pay-what-you-can-afford farm stand offering plants, seeds and produce for sale to help other growers get started, an urban botanical garden and herb library, the annual purchase of dandelions and other herbs from local harvesters, and the employment of six full-time farm workers are a few ways Smoke Camp Crafts is inspiring and supporting the community it operates in. We are inspired daily by our founder Dot Mongillion.
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