The Mysterious Kentucky Yahoos
Kentucky, according to legend, has its own Yahoos.
In the book Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (1992), the author claims Boone told "tall tales" about "killing a ten-foot, hairy giant he called a 'Yahoo.'" Reportedly Gulliver's Travels was one of Boone's favorite books and he carried it with him when he ventured into the woods.
In a 1957 issue of the journal Western Folklore, folklorist Leonard Roberts reported that he had collected "four or five versions" of what he called "a curious and strange legend" he encountered in isolated regions of the Kentucky mountains. The stories involved large, hairy wild people who lived in the woods. In one version of the story, the wild person is specifically called a "Yeahoh." The Kentucky Yeahoh was described as repeatedly making the sound "yea-hoh, yeahoh"; Swift described his Yahoos as uttering their own sounds in a similar manner. Could the Kentucky legends be a reference to Swift's "Yahoo"? If so, it could be evidence that Boone's tall tales survived over one hundred years of retellings in the Kentucky highlands.
Of course we could just go out on a limb and say it's Bigfoot : )