In the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, a range of mountains that make up part of the Tuscarora State Forest (see second photo) run in a crescent shape from the nine o’clock to the twelve o’clock position. And running from south to north on the western side of these mountains is route 522, which goes across the small village of Shade Gap. Here you can find this historical marker about the ominous “Shadow of Death”. As the marker indicates, it got this name in the 18th century, but beyond that not much is known. The Frankstown Path, also known as the Kittanning Trail, ran right through it. We do know something about this route, which was originally developed by American Indians and was of major importance connecting the land from the modern state capital Harrisburg with land that eventually became Pittsburgh to the west. As white encroachment onto the indigenous Americans’ lands continued into the mid-1700s, Native American tribes such as the Lenape began to attack British settlements in the area. So an educated guess would be that white settlers might have called this area the Shadow of Death because of a particulalrly successful raid. They would have been deliberately harkening to a religious text popular In the Christian tradition, because in the Bible, Psalm 23 reads “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me . . . .”
