John Stith Pemberton

Pemberton was born on July 8, 1831, in Knoxville, Georgia, and spent most of his childhood in Rome, Georgia. His parents were James C. Pemberton and Martha L. Gant.[1] The Pembertons were of English lineage, the direct paternal ancestor Phineas Pemberton and his family from Lancashire, traveled aboard the ship Submission about 1682 from Liverpool to the Province of Maryland, eventually settling in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.[2][3][4] There he built a mansion in 1687 and had served as William Penn's chief administrator.[5] Stith Pemberton entered the Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon, Georgia, and in 1850, at the age of nineteen, he earned his medical degree.[6] His main talent was chemistry.[7] After initially practicing some medicine and surgery, Dr. Pemberton opened a drug store in Columbus.[6]

During the American Civil War, Pemberton served in the Third Cavalry Battalion of the Georgia State Guard, which was at that time a component of the Confederate Army. He achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel.[6]

He met Ann Eliza Clifford Lewis of Columbus, Georgia, known to her friends as "Cliff", who had been a student at the Wesleyan College in Macon. They were married in Columbus in 1853. Their only child, Charles Ney Pemberton, was born in 1854.

They lived in a Victorian cottage, the Pemberton House in Columbus, a home of historic significance which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 28, 1971.[8][9][10]

In April 1865, Dr. Pemberton sustained a saber wound to the chest during the Battle of Columbus. He soon became addicted to the morphine used to ease his pain.[11][12][13]

In 1866, seeking a cure for his addiction, he began to experiment with painkillers that would serve as morphine-free alternatives to morphine.[14][15][16] His first recipe was "Dr. Tuggle's Compound Syrup of Globe Flower", in which the active ingredient was derived from the buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), a toxic plant.[17] He next began experimenting with coca and coca wines, eventually creating a recipe that contained extracts of kola nut and damiana, which he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca.[18][19]

According to Coca-Cola historian Phil Mooney, Pemberton's world-famous soda was created in Columbus, Georgia and carried to Atlanta.[20] With public concern about drug addiction, depression, and alcoholism among war veterans, and "neurasthenia" among "highly-strung" Southern women,[21] Pemberton's "medicine" was advertised as particularly beneficial for "ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration".[22]

In 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County enacted temperance legislation, Pemberton had to produce a non-alcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca.[23] Pemberton relied on Atlanta drugstore owner-proprietor Willis E. Venable to test, and help him perfect, the recipe for the beverage, which he formulated by trial and error. With Venable's assistance, Pemberton worked out a set of directions for its preparation.

Standing in the open doorway to the pharmacy, atop the stoop, is John Pemberton in April 1888 at 47 Peachtree Street, Atlanta.[24]

He blended the base syrup with carbonated water by accident when trying to make another glassful of the beverage. Pemberton decided then to sell this as a fountain drink rather than a medicine. Frank Mason Robinson came up with the name "Coca-Cola" for the alliterative sound, which was popular among other wine medicines of the time. Although the name refers to the two main ingredients, because of controversy over its cocaine content, The Coca-Cola Company later said that the name was "meaningless but fanciful". Robinson's hand wrote the Spencerian script on the bottles and ads. Pemberton made many health claims for his product, touting it as a "valuable brain tonic" that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion, and calm nerves, and marketed it as "delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhilarating", and "invigorating".[25]

A sign in Knoxville, Georgia, commemorating John Pemberton.

Soon after Coca-Cola hit the market, Dr. Pemberton fell ill and nearly bankrupt. Sick and desperate, he began selling rights to his formula to his business partners in Atlanta. Part of his motivation to sell was that he still suffered from expensive continuing morphine addiction.[26] Pemberton had a hunch that his formula "someday will be a national drink", so he attempted to retain a share of the ownership to leave to his son.[26] However, Pemberton's son wanted the money, so in 1888, Pemberton and his son sold the remaining portion of the patent to a fellow Atlanta pharmacist, Asa Griggs Candler, for US$1,750,[6] which in 2020 purchasing power is equal to US$47,230.[27]

The grave of John Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia.

John Pemberton died from stomach cancer at age 57 in August 1888. At the time of his death, he also suffered from poverty and addiction to morphine. His body was returned to Columbus, Georgia, where he was buried at Linwood Cemetery. His grave marker is engraved with symbols showing his service in the Confederate Army and his membership as a Freemason. His son Charley continued to sell his father's formula, but six years later Charles Pemberton died, having succumbed to opium addiction.[28]

• Schoenberg, B S (1988), "Coke's the one: the centennial of the 'ideal brain tonic' that became a symbol of America", South. Med. J. (published Jan 1988), 81 (1), pp. 69–74, doi:10.1097/00007611-198801000-00015, PMID 3276011
• King, M M (1987), "Dr. John S. Pemberton: originator of Coca-Cola", Pharmacy in History, 29 (2), pp. 85–9, PMID 11621277
• Hasegawa, Guy (March 1, 2000), "Pharmacy in the American Civil War", American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 57 (5), pp. 457–489, doi:10.1093/ajhp/57.5.475, PMID 10711530, American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy

• Media related to John Pemberton at Wikimedia Commons
• The Chronicle Of Coca-Cola: Birth of a Refreshing Idea at The Coca-Cola Company