To build the barn on our property, my great grandfather fell trees, cut planks, and assembled it without power or gas tools. One tree made up the entire floor, loft, and feed bunk walls (~8000 sq.ft.) of 2"x12" lumber. He moved that tree roughly 3 miles by himself (with mules). There are tens of thousands of board feet of lumber making up this barn.
What I'm getting at is that this amount of work is just unbelievable. I would never even think of trying it, and he did it in two months. By himself.
So. Take the fact that they had no choice, and it was all they knew, it doesn't seem surprising. Modern life really is much, much easier than it used to be.
He probably knew a lot of tricks for doing this kind of work fast and efficiently and was also probably ripped. People doing a lot of manual labor back then would have been in far better shape than most people today except athletes and people very into working out.
I wonder if there was a good body of common knowledge about how to work without injuring yourself. That would have been important given the absence of advanced medicine.
Surely it's very unusual to do such work (in the past) by oneself. One hears of individuals making small dwellings (log cabins, over a period of 6+ months), but communities would get together to make barns.
Not wanting to be insensitive, but was your grandfather an outcast; no relatives or friends that would help?
To build the barn on our property, my great grandfather fell trees, cut planks, and assembled it without power or gas tools. One tree made up the entire floor, loft, and feed bunk walls (~8000 sq.ft.) of 2"x12" lumber. He moved that tree roughly 3 miles by himself (with mules). There are tens of thousands of board feet of lumber making up this barn.
What I'm getting at is that this amount of work is just unbelievable. I would never even think of trying it, and he did it in two months. By himself.
So. Take the fact that they had no choice, and it was all they knew, it doesn't seem surprising. Modern life really is much, much easier than it used to be.