How self-sufficient are you?

Today if we have enough money to take care of ourselves, we are “selfsufficient.”

But when the grocery shelves were stripped bare this spring, we discovered we had to depend on Walmart and toilet paper factories.

Without electricity, we have no water, heat or flushing toilets.

Self-sufficiency looked different in the old days.

They grew and canned their own food, sewed their own clothes, made their own soap, dug wells for water, and had the convenient outside outhouse.

Everyone had the skills necessary for these essential living necessities.

They even built their own homes, without a loan from a bank!

Double log houses

John Epton, a founder of Wofford College was truly “self-sufficient.”

He was a descendant of John Adam Epting from the Little Mountain area.

He built his own house totally by the sweat of his brow. This was a common feat in the old days.

His “double log house” built in 1840 had a shed room, piazza and 2 chimneys.

It was featured in the “Know Your County, It’s Landmarks and History” of the Spartanburg Journal. In a tragic historical event, it burned down in 1976.

He cleared the land, with others’ help and a “felling ax.”

A broad ax and an adze – a tool similar to an ax – squared and dressed round logs to square timber for the cabin’s frame.

The dovetailed logs were marked and put together like Lincoln Logs.

The trees were hauled to the mill by horses.

They were then sawed into panels, which became the walls, floors, and ceilings.

The roof was covered with handmade oak shingles.

He made his own handcrafted wooden pins called “treenails.”

Keeping out the cold

The spaces between the logs were filled with “noggin,” a mortar mixed with bricks.

He made bricks with red mud and water and baked them in his handmade kiln.

Epton used his homemade bricks to make open fireplaces and chimneys.

He even crafted the wood mantle.

5 generations of Eptons lived on the property he bought from his father-in-law.

How satisfying it must have been to spend that first night in the new cabin he built by hand. Dreams can become reality one day at a time.

Epton’s log cabin was constructed one day at a time.

One of my dream homes is to pay someone to build me a log cabin, complete with wood stove and electricity and indoor plumbing.

Perhaps I should start a log cabin fund.

Got a question or idea for a future Good Ol’ Days? Email Liesha at liesha.huffstetler@gmail.com .