Nippenose Valley hideaway: Property for sale in Jersey Shore area includes famed bootlegger’s stash house
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JERSEY SHORE -- A Lycoming County Realtor says he is going to auction a property in the Nippenose Valley that has a spot on it linked to a famous bootlegger.
The 92-acre-plus, two-parcel for sale has one parcel with a wood shack on it that was used as a stash house by the famed moonshine distributor "Prince David Farrington," said Michael T. Roan, an auctioneer managing the sale.
The auction will be at 1834 Coldwater Tower Road at 2 p.m. on Saturday, he said. To get there, take Route 654 and Jacks Hollow Road by Nippenose Tavern and take Route 654 west two-tenths of a mile. Then turn right onto Coldwater Tower Road and go 1.6 miles where there will be a sign and property on the right and then left for the sale.
The shack, which is nestled in a wooded area in Bastress Township part of the two parcel property in three townships, including Bastress, Limestone and Nippenose, can be seen in photographs.
The land owner is Gene E. Steppe Estate. The stash house was used to store the whiskey on site during a period of probation of alcoholic beverages, Roan said.
That 13-year span when prohibition was in place began in 1920 and ran through 1933 -- the Roaring Twenties and a part of the Great Depression.
Ownership of the property was kept in the Steppe family: Mary and Joseph Steppe, 1898-1928; Clara and Joseph Steppe, 1928-1929; Kathryn and Anthony Steppe, 1929-1939; and Clara and Joseph Steppe, 1939-1945.
For history buffs, such as Roan, Farrington is a name that makes one immediately want to take a swig. He was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, in 1889.
He found his way north and moved to Loganton, where he bought a farm.
His business was making moonshine, and he was popular throughout Clinton and Lycoming counties.
"Since the 1980s, I have probably sold at least 10 places where he was," Roan said.
One property used by the bootlegger was in Nisbet, which is a village southwest of South Williamsport and DuBoistown.
There, Farrington would use what's commonly referred to as pig huts, at the entrances to the farm, where pigs would lie in wait and begin squealing like a modern-day burglar alarm if anyone approached.
Another Farrington property is the last house near the Antler's Club, a house that exists and has large pillars on the front.
"When law enforcement would try to get him, he would escape in a boat on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River," Roan said he was told.
Roan also spent time in the White Deer Valley south of Lycoming County in Union County, where Farrington has several stills.
Stills were once at the base of the mountain at the village of McElhattan in Clinton County, he said.
As a side note, Farrington was a friend to the area corn farmers, naturally, because he would use corn mash to make the whiskey.
"He was their income during prohibition," Roan said. "They (farmers) were his protectors."
It is said the infamous mobster, Al Capone, while in Scranton, tried to connect with Farrington but that meeting, presumably, did not take place.
The moonshine storage shack in Bastress Township was a place to store the whiskey, transported by donkey or other beast of burden.
A Victorian-era door, believed to be built in the 1890s, can be seen in the photograph of the moonshine shack.
The land is interesting in that it was in the family since 1898, Roan said.
The shack is on the 80-acre parcel, he said.
"In Harrisburg, they knew something of the product of the Farrington still," said John M. Cummings, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, in the April 6, 1951, edition.
"Statesmen smacked their lips in appreciation of the illegal nectar. Farrington's whiskey was well known in Pittsburgh and, to a lesser degree, in Philadelphia."
It was among the best tasting moonshine among those who imbibed.
Farrington was no amateur moonshiner and became a millionaire for his product.
Farrington was considered to be a flamboyant "rascal who planned and executed a vast illegal distilling operation."
Tax responsibility for whoever bids for the property will be in the $1,692 range.
Among other amenities on the Steppe property is a two-story frame house, which has 100 amp electric service, a cesspool and a spring called "Old Faithful," Roan said.
Additionally, the property has a barn and woodlands in the Jersey Shore Area School District.