December 16, 1908
GOING TO GOTHAM BY GOAT.
Man From San Diego Reaches Rose-
dale in His Slow Journey.
CAPTAIN VIVIAN EDWARDS AND HIS TEAM OF ANGORAS.
From San Diego to New York, in a diminutive buggy drawn by a four-in-hand team of Angora goats, constitutes the unusual transcontinental journey, already more than half accomplished, by Captain Vivian Edwards, who reached Rosedale yesterday afternoon at 4:30 o'clock.
Captain Edwards, or "Santa Claus," as the children have dubbed him along the route on account of his horned team, is a cripple, having completely lost the use of his lower limbs, from paralysis. He is accompanied by J. R. Johnson, a globe trotter with a traveling record, according to himself, that embraces every corner of the known earth except Australia and New Zealand, and Cecil Fleener, a 14-year-old New Mexican, who has ambitions to visit all of the countries seen by his older mate, with the addition of the two antipodal exceptions.
Both companions of the goat driver are on foot and have walked every step of the way from California to Missouri, aside from about fifty feet which they rode through an Arizona mudhole. The camp paraphernalia of the party is borne by three pack burros.
Edwards is a great goat driver. He is making this long journey to further familiarize himself with the fidelity, endurance, magnamity and mental endowments of the creature. Then he's going to write a book on "Some Goats I Have Met," or "From Golden Gate to Gotham by Goat," or some such alluring title. That's the secret. The idea is to come rambling back, like Ezra Meeker did, and like the Alaskan and his dogs are doing, like they all do, in fact.
The goat driver's able bodied companion talks long and uninterestingly about the trip, which, for one of its kind, appears to have been extraordinarily devoid of incident and adventure.
Labels: animals, buggy, California, New York, Rosedale, visitors
