People the world over have always been fascinated with the romance of the outlaw. We subconsciously envy anyone who thumbs his nose at authority.

Outlaws can be as generous as Robin Hood, as psychotic as Billy the Kid, or as greedy as Al Capone. The reputations grow and evolve as the tales drift and sift through the folk memory.

After we peel away the media-fueled myths, though, we find the truth to be somewhere in between. The reality that was too ordinary for the rest of us to bear, that we ached to escape, returns. Sometimes with a vengeance.

Central Pennsylvania has its own legendary outlaw, a former North Carolina farm boy named Prince Farrington. His empire spread from Altoona to Williamsport, from Harrisburg to the New York State border.

Farrington sold something more tangible than cultural esthetics or athletic success. His business exported Centre, Clinton, and Lycoming Counties’ one–time pride all over the eastern half of this country. It took the form of a near-religious ecstasy that traced its origins back to every agricultural hamlet throughout God's country.

The Romans called it aqua vitae. Gaelic-speaking people called it uisge beatha. Both mean “water of life.”

We call it moonshine. Not the night time beams filtering through the broken boards of an outhouse door. This was bootleg corn whiskey, white lightnin’, the cool liquid fire that slides down the throat, rips the top off your skull, and burns stars into your eyeballs. The stuff so good that it leaves the Devil himself begging to let go of your soul.

Moonshining has its own pedigree in the tradition of political dissent. In fact, it played a crucial role as our nation's first president personally led twelve thousand troops into western Pennsylvania. Washington’s mission was to collect an unjust excise tax from small, rural whiskey producers. This so-called Whiskey Rebellion was a deliberate provocation by our new constitutional government to exercise power and control.

Whiskey-making was still part of our area's economic lifeblood eighty years ago. There were few alternatives to making a decent living here. Traditional markets were not providing the income farmers needed to keep their land and support their families. Distilled rye and corn liquor was always easier to ship and brought bigger profits than flour.

Hard times encourage true community effort. In those days, the only dough rolling in this region (other than on a bread board) was Farrington’s. Everyone stood to reap the benefits.

Farrington put more people to work in central Pennsylvania than the government ever did in those days. People who made charcoal in their farmyards. People who hauled the stills and supplies into the remote mountain hollows. People who cooked the mash by the "rule of four": four gallons of water and four pounds of sugar to every pound of cornmeal. People who smuggled the liquid gold out in barrels and jugs for sale in the cities.

Moonshining was a business. Unfortunately, because of its illegal nature, there was little accountability.

Farrington couldn’t spend, couldn’t give, the money away fast enough. Legends about his philanthropy sprouted and grew faster than cornstalks in a late June thunderstorm. No publicity, No oversized checks. No insecure egos. This was person-to-person, under the table.

Mention the name to just about anybody, regardless of the generation, and the stories still flow non-stop.

“He gave $600 to a church to pay for a new roof. It cost $400, but he told the preacher to keep the difference.”

"Farrington dropped by once and gave my parents twenty dollars when that much money could feed our family of twelve."

"He kept all the guards in the Lock Haven pokey looped with hootch while his brother was in there."

"He'd drive into a town, take the kids to the doctor or dentist, pay the bill, and give them a bag of candy."

Oh, Farrington was jailed and fined – a few bucks here, a few days there – during the twenties and thirties. When barrels of evidence at one trial “disappeared” from a courthouse basement, the Commonwealth had to drop its charges.

Moonshining was the only way he knew how to make a living.

But Farrington's operations ended less glamorously than a gangland blaze of glory. First came the repeal of Prohibition. The government later paid Civilian Conservation Corps teenagers to cut roads into the hinterland hideouts.

Income tax evasion landed Farrington twenty months in Lewisburg. His last arrest was twelve years later in 1948. He spent his remaining eight years with his daughter, broke and obscure.

There are more stories about Prince Farrington out there – some true, some exaggerated – but all real in their own way.

We're here to listen and to write them all down, so feel free to pass them this way. This is your history, central Pennsylvania.

Bruce Teeple is a free-lance writer, speaker and local historian and is writing a book about Prince Farrington. He lives in Aaronsburg, Centre County and can be reached at mongopawn44@hotmail.com