Report 16408: Children observe bipedal animal walking along railroad tracks near the Housatonic River

This took place 53 years ago, however, I have lived with the vision of this creature all my life and have told no one about it. I was visiting a relative's cottage on Housatonic Lake near Indian Wells State Park in the White Hills region of Shelton, CT. Back then (1953) this area was not inhabited very densely and still is not today. There were 3 of us, all age 5-6, and we left the cottage and headed for the railroad track, which ran along the Housatonic River and Lake, to pick wild blackberries to put on our cereal. It was about 1/3 mile from the cottage. As we were busy picking, a large (6 1/2' to 7' tall) creature came down the steep hillside and proceeded to walk northward along the railroad tracks, staring at the 3 of us once, and moving at a fast walk. I remember the length of it's stride (about 5') and it's arms which looked like they went almost to it's knees. The body was covered in a dark brown/grayish color hair and it had the face of a primate. The hair was shorter than Bigfoots I've seen on TV (Patterson film) and it's body was thinner than those also. We ran back to the cottage to tell our parents who dismissed this as children's fantasy. This event took place BEFORE there was ever a mention of anything like Bigfoot, especially in this area.