For a while when I was still in high school (when I began hiking naked), I lived in a log house with no indoor plumbing and no telephone. Electricity was put in just a few years before we moved there. For heat in the winter, there was a coal-burning stove (a "Warm Morning" brand) in one room and a wood-burning stove in the kitchen. The place was on several acres and believe me, in that part of the country you would not run out of wood. But we did buy toilet paper at the store.
Deforestation is also land clearing. The original pioneers (who built the house, never called a cabin) had to clear land before they could grow anything. I understand that a lot of trees were just cut down and burned to make space to grow things. There was a lot of waste but there were no alternatives at the time. In fact, the very same thing is still done when land is cleared around here for a housing project. But it sure wasn't very good land for farming there, even though some people still did, some even using horses. Judging from the timbers in the house, there were big trees cut for building purposes.
The past is not yet past.
