He was a fixture on downtown Atlanta streets — his left side withered, sitting in a cart pulled by a goat. Naturally, folks called him the Goat Man.
He sold stuff to passers-by. City fathers tried banning him and his goat from downtown; the Goat Man and the goat ignored them. Once, the Goat Man vanished, touching off citywide speculation: Was he robbed? Killed? Maybe he was on a bender somewhere?
When he died, 105 years ago, the Goat Man was buried in Oakland Cemetery in an unmarked grave.
That's long enough. The Goat Man is about to get a tombstone bearing his name, thanks to funds raised during the recent Capturing the Spirit of Oakland tours. Visitors to the historic burial ground donated more than $2,400 to get the Goat Man a stone.
When it arrives, the stone will bear the name of —
But let’s not get hasty.
The Goat Man was unique, said David Moore, who portrayed the Goat Man in the recently ended cemetery tours. Moore is executive director of the Historic Oakland Foundation, the nonprofit that looks after Atlanta’s signature cemetery.
“He was basically your downtown character, a fixture,” said Moore.
The Goat Man, said Moore, was the 19th-century equivalent of Baton Bob, the Spandex-and-sequin sensation who struts his stuff on Midtown streets. Born in 1849, the Goat Man was stricken by meningitis as a young man; it left him partially paralyzed on his left side. His goat, Peter, did the walking while the Goat Man did the hawking — matches, pencils, whatever fruit was in season.
Not everyone appreciated his efforts. City Council members passed an ordinance that forbade him, and the smelly goat, from conducting trade on downtown streets. The Goat Man mulishly refused to observe the ban. Man and goat, they became part of the city’s fabric.
Little surprise, then, that people raised an alarm in 1899, when the Goat Man vanished. His mother went to the chief of police to report him missing. The Atlanta Constitution dispatched a reporter to get the facts.
“The old goat man has been missing since Monday night,” the Constitution reported. “His aged mother, who is almost distracted from anxiety, … is firmly of the opinion that he has met with foul play.”
The Goat Man came back six weeks after his mom went to the cops, Moore said. History does not record where he was, or what he’d done. He resumed his trade on Atlanta’s streets.
When the Goat Man died in 1910, mourners placed him between his parents in a plot not far from a scattering of Confederate graves — the site where, for three weekends, Moore regaled visitors with the Goat Man’s exploits. He wound up each presentation with a simple plea: Donate a dollar or two, please, to commemorate the Goat Man’s life.
Folks responded with coins, dollars, twenties — plenty, Moore thinks, to get a marker commemorating the Goat Man.
This wasn’t the first time Oakland had appealed to visitors’ generosity. Three years ago, the cemetery made an identical pitch for Abbie Howard, buried under a magnolia a century ago. In the 1800s, she ran a brothel. Visitors were so enthralled with her story that they gave more than $2,000 for a stone recognizing an early Atlanta entrepreneur.
Now, said Moore, the cemetery will honor another Atlantan who’s laid too long in anonymity.
“Maybe,” said Moore, “someone will etch a cart and goat on it.”
It will read: William Jasper Franklin.
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