History & local legend
The wooded route above Pitcairn toward Monroeville is associated with a figure known as Johnson's Shadow Man. In a July 2008 recollection, a former neighborhood child described building a clubhouse there in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A dark figure sometimes crouched behind a tree or stood about fifty yards away.
A later group described an encounter near a blue gate on the hillside. They illuminated a roadside shape with a flashlight and thought its position changed each time the beam moved away and returned. Two friends approached. In their account, the figure then moved toward them and extended its arms.
Sources
- StrangeUSA, Johnson’s Shadow Man, Pitcairn, July 2008 firsthand account of the childhood clubhouse and June 2009 accounts by two members of the group at the blue gate
- Pittsburgh Ghost Squad, The Eight Legged Freaks of Pitcairn, 2013 firsthand site visit, describes the public Kenney / Short approach and alternate Johnston spelling
- Pennsylvania Haunts & History, original Pitcairn Spooks / Johnson’s Shadow Man section
- OpenStreetMap, upper corner of Short Street and Kenney Avenue
