It's coincidental that I browsed this site and saw this thread. Yesterday I happened upon a book in my public library called "Bears Bibles and a Boy :Memories of the Adirondacks" by Jesse David Roberts.

It's all about Trapping and Hunting in the Adirondacks around the turn of the 19th century. It's really good if you like that sort of thing. Lot's of Bear hunting stuff. Anyway, I'm reading along and suddenly there is a chapter about weird things seen coming in the middle of the night and swiping Livestock and things like that. There were witnesses because the dogs really freaked out and the farmers would run outside because they thought they were chasing off bears. They'd say things like "It was on 2 legs but it wasn't a bear." The author even says his Dad saw a white one on a mountain somewhere in the ADK's.

This book was written in 1961. 6 years before the Bigfoot thingy in Oregon or wherever that was, was filmed. I always laughed at this stuff too, but this got me thinking...