Charles "Ches" McCartney, (1901?-1998) also known as the Goat Man, was a preacher who traveled up and down the eastern United States from 1930 to 1968 in a ramshackle wagon pulled by a team of goats.

Ches grew up on a farm in Iowa, ran away at 14, in New York he met and married a Spanish knife thrower ten years his senior and became part of her act, serving as near-miss target. When she became pregnant they made a living as farmers, but were wiped out at the start of the Great Depression. Ches came up with the idea of using a goat cart to travel with his family as an itinerant preacher. His wife did not like the idea,and she left one day before dawn

Ches's iron-wheeled wagon was garishly decorated with a clutter of objects he found and collected along the road. It contained a bed, a potbellied stove, lanterns, and was pulled by a team of around nine goats, with a few trailing behind to occasionally push and serve as brakes on downhill stretches of road. His traveling goat herd sometimes numbered up to thirty. The goats were surprisingly sturdy and effective draft animals and Ches managed to make five to ten miles a day

Robinson Crusoe, and his Bible, were the only two books he carried.. He  lived an independent lifestyle, dress himself and his son Albert in goat skins and lived off the land and goat milk, he sold post cards of himself, scrap metal he collected, and charged for photographing him.. He also accepted donations for his "Free Thinking Christian Mission"

Kids and doe goats rode in the wagon while bucks did the draft and push work. Ches kept and cared for his sick and injured goats, including one which had no front legs and had learned to hop on its back legs like a kangaroo. He named all his goats, and one of his favorites, Billy Blue Horns, lived three decades.

He has wrestled a bear, was nearly lynched by the Ku Klux Klan, was once thought dead and taken to the morgue but he awakened on a mortician's table as the undertaker inserted an embalming needle in his arm, and got mugged in LA trying to see actress Morgan Fairchild. He covered more than 100,000 miles and visited all states except Hawaii.

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