A "Gorilla" in Ohio?

Ohio is a hotbed for Bigfoot sightings. The earliest possible sighting of one of the creatures in the state was reported in a January 23, 1869 in an article in the Minnesota Weekly Record , with the headline "A Gorilla in Ohio." It is reprinted below. (Keep in mind, the terms "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch" are not used because they had not been invented yet. "Sasquatch" was first used as a name for the creatures in the 1920s and "Bigfoot" in 1958.)

"Gallipolis is excited over a wild man, who is reported to haunt the woods near that city. He goes naked, is covered with hair, is gigantic in height, and 'his eyes start from their sockets." A carriage, containing a man and daughter, was attacked by him a few days ago. He is said to have bounded at the father, catching him in a grip like that of a vice, hurling him to the earth, falling on him and endeavoring to bite and to scratch like a wild animal. The struggle was long and fearful, rolling and wallowing in the deep mud, have [sic] suffocated, sometimes beneath his adversary, whose bringing and maniac eyes glared into his own with murderous and savage intensity. Just as he was about to become exhausted from his exertions, his daughter, taking courage at the imminent danger of her parent, snatched up a rock and hurling it at the head of her father's would be murderer, was fortunate enough to put an end to the struggle by striking him somewhere about the ear. The creature was not stunned, but feeling unequal to further exertion, slowly got up and retired into the neighboring copse that skirted the road."

A "man" who "goes naked, is covered with hair," and "is gigantic in height" certainly sounds like nothing other than a Bigfoot. Was a man really attacked by one of the creatures? Or was the newspaper having a slow news day? Was there really a Bigfoot encounter, just blown out of proportion by the media?

If this account is genuine, then it is probably not a terrifying encounter with a "gorilla" or "wild man" near Gallipolis, but a Bigfoot. Bigfoots do live in Ohio. Gorillas do not.