My sister, Sandra, found the book "Asa Griggs Candler" written by his son, Charles Howard Candler in the library at the Georgia Governor's Mansion. I tried to find a copy of the book on amazon, but of course it is out of print. The book was first published in 1950 by Emory University, Atlanta, GA. In case you are not familiar with who he was, Asa Griggs Candler, founder of the Coca-Cola Company, was also a banker and real estate developer and was noted for his philanthropy. He also served as the 44th Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia from 1916 to 1919. He was the principal donor in establishing Emory University. I may be jumping ahead of the story here but according to my cousin Darlene Dunagan Scruggs, as a descendant of Joseph Ellis Dunagan and Lucinda Beall Dunagan, my third great grandparents, I am a second cousin, three times removed, to Asa Griggs Candler, based on my DNA match. I want to know what happened to my Coke inheritance! I got nothing!
Let's start at the beginning as Charles Howard Candler writes of the family relationships and ancestry going back to 1650 when Oliver Cromwell led the English army against the Scots at Dunbar, Scotland. Among his officers was a young lieutenant Colonel of the Sir Hardress Waller's regiment named William Candler. More importantly was the fact that Cromwell dealt the Scots an unexpected and disastrous defeat at Dunbar. More than 3000 Scotsmen were slaughtered on the field and 10,000 prisoners taken. The wounded among these were released, but approximately 5,000 were sent south, where some died of fever and dysentery, some however were sold into slavery to English planters in America and the West Indies. Among the latter was one Ninian Beall, holder of a commission as cornet in Leslie's army, and native of Fifeshire, just across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. Sentenced to five years' servitude for the sin of fighting for his native soil, he and 150 other Scots were packed into the hold of a slave ship and sent to Barbados. About 1652 he was transferred, still a prisoner, to the province and colony of Maryland, where he served about five years with Richard Hall of Calvert county, Maryland. In 1657, according to the Maryland Land Office, Ninian Beall, became a planter himself, acquiring 50 acres of land for his time served as a military prisoner. Ninian Beall made good use of the opportunities which life offered him in this New World called America. The fifty acres noted in the grant were the beginning of extensive land-holdings which made him one of the most important planters in the colony of Maryland. Stay with me now!
On part of the acreage that Ninian Beall acquired, later became part of where the District of Columbia and Georgetown is located today. His plantation was called Dumbarton Oaks, also referred to as the "Rock of Dumbarton. Ninian lived well into his 90s and his grave was exhumed sometime during the 1970s and they found that he stood at 6 foot 7 inches tall and there was evidence that he had red hair.
This young Scot obviously possessed a considerable talent for arms and he was very tall. Soon after his arrival, he was commissioned first lieutenant of Calvert County Militia, and later a major and ultimately a colonel. When Ninian was captured and exiled to the New World, he was already a husband and father, although his Scottish wife probably died even before the battle of Dunbar. Thomas, one of his sons from this marriage, eventually came to America around 1667, and it is through his blood line of Bealls that descends through seven generations to Asa Griggs Candler.
Let's jump forward to Samuel Candler, Asa Griggs Candler's father, moved to Carroll County, Georgia, shortly after the War of 1812. Later he moved to Cherokee County, Georgia where he found his future wife, Martha Bernetta Beall, oldest daughter of Noble Peyton Beall and Justiana Dickinson Hooper Beall. Here at last the long chain of circumstances which had begun nearly 200 years before during the campaigns of Oliver Cromwell brought together the descendants of the conquering English colonel of Callan and the exiled young Scot from Fifeshire.
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The Bealls, descended from the same Ninian Beall who was captured and transported after the Battle of Dunbar, were a distinguished family. One of Martha Beall's uncles, John Beall, was a well known figure in the Texas struggle for liberty and perished with Fannin at the Alamo. Her grandfather was General Frederick Beall, veteran of the War of 1812, and father to my 3rd great grandmother Lucinda Beall who married Joseph Ellis Dunagan of Hall County Georgia. Martha's great-grandfather was Colonel Thaddeus Beall, who commanded a battalion of the Maryland line in the army of General Washington during the American Revolution. Thaddeus' great-great-grandfather was Ninian Beall. Martha's mother, Justinana Dickinson Hooper was the great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Adams, cousin of John and Samuel Adams of the Massachusetts family.
It was about 1833 when Samuel Candler moved back to Carroll County Georgia. At one time, Samuel, his brother Ezekiel Slaughter Candler, and his son Milton Anthony Candler, were all serving in the Georgia legislature, Milton in the Senate and Samuel and Ezekiel in the House. This was the same time that Joseph Elllis Dunagan served in the Senate representing Hall County Georgia for over 24 years. Samuel's brother, Daniel Candler, was a captain in the Confederate Army and led the famed Banks County Guards. His son was Allen D. Candler, a Confederate colonel and later governor of Georgia.
Charles Howard Candler writes of his father's frustration about not being able to obtain a formal education after the war. Asa Griggs Candler's father had wanted him to go to college, intending that he finish at the University of Georgia, study medicine, and become a physician, but that was not to be. On July 1, 1870, Asa Griggs Candler, apprenticed himself to two physicians, Drs. Best and Kirkpatrick, friends of his family, in Cartersville, Georgia. These two doctors operated a small drug store as an adjunct to their medical practice and it was there that Asa begin to work. He would study Latin and Greek and read medical books at night, occupying a room in the rear of the store, where he slept on a cot. He quickly found that the study of chemistry was a source of great pleasure. In 1888 he bought the formula for Coke from it's creator, Dr. John Pemberton, a local pharmacist, and in 1892 founded the Coca Cola Company with his brother John S. Candler and three other associates and the rest is history. And now, you know the rest of the story.
