Hello all,

I’ve been reading the “Little House” series of books made famous by the TV show “Little House on the Prairie” to my kids. What fascinates me about the series is the minute detail  they go into about how pioneers (in this case Laura’s parents “Pa” and “Ma” during the 1870s) performed the necessary jobs to survive on their own with minimal resources. From making maple syrup to butter to a stone chimney, it’s all fascinating and seems to be from first hand experience (albeit from the perspective of a young girl) . So in the second book, “Little House on the Prairie”, they describe how Pa made an oak door by hand, without nails or hardware for their cabin when they settled in the prairie. The part that has me stumped is how he made door hinges out of leather. Does anyone know if this would be possible? Here’s the excerpt that is of interest:

“With the saw he sawed logs the right length for a door. He sawed shorter lengths for crosspieces. Then with the ax he split the logs into slabs, and smoothed them nicely. He laid the long slabs together on the ground and placed the shorter slabs across them. Then with the auger he bored holes through the cross-pieces into the long slabs. Into every hole he drove a wooden peg that fitted tightly.

That made the door. It was a good oak door, solid and strong.
For the hinges he cut three long straps. One hinge was to be near the top of the door, one near the bottom, and one in the middle. He fastened them first to the door, in this way: He laid a little piece of wood on the door, and bored a hole through it into the door. Then he doubled one end of a strap around the little piece of wood, and with his knife cut round holes through the strap. He laid the little piece of wood on the door again, with the strap doubled around it, and all the holes making one hole. Then Laura gave him a peg and the hammer, and he drove the peg into the hole. The peg went through the strap and the little piece of wood and through the
strap again and into the door. That held the strap so that it couldn’t get loose.
“I told you a fellow doesn’t need nails!” Pa said.

When he had fastened the three hinges to the door, he set the door in the doorway. It fitted. Then he pegged strips of wood to the old slabs on either side of the doorway, to keep the door from swinging outward. He set the door in place again, and Laura stood against it to hold it there, while Pa fastened the hinges to the door-frame.”

I searched online and wasn’t able to confirm anything other than a debate on the practicality of using leather as a hinge especially considering that we’re talking about a big oak slab door. Still, the books give many, many descriptions of jobs that were done on the frontier and this is the first description that I’ve questioned it’s veracity. Hell, they even described using the stomach of a slaughtered calf to make rennet in the cheese making process and that checks out. Perhaps I’m missing something about how this would be possible.

Thanks for the insight!

Tim