For God, Country, and Coca-Cola

by Mark Pendergrast

  THE UNKNOWN COCA-COLA COMPANY

  On March 24, 1888, Asa Candler, Charley Pemberton, and Woolfolk Walker and his sister filed in Fulton County Superior Court for incorporation of the Coca-Cola Company. Candler soon regretted both the incorporation and the partnership with the immature Pemberton, who proved to be more a liability than a help. Although much of the wording was probably “boiler plate” for such documents, it is nonetheless instructive to see what they planned:

  The purposes of this Company . . . will be the manufacturing of Coca-Cola Syrup; the buying of ingredients and appliances necessary therefor, and the sale of the manufactured article, as a syrup in bulk, bottled, as a medicine, and as a nerve tonic; And they desire the privilege of extending such manufacturing to other specialties of like kind. . . . The Capital Stock of said Company shall be twelve thousand dollars; more than ten percent of which has already been paid in. . . . The principal office and place of business . . . shall be . . . Atlanta . . . but petitioners desire the privilege of establishing branch offices or factories elsewhere.

  Like all other incorporations, this one would last for twenty years before renewal. The petition stated that over $1,200 had already been paid in. Presumably some of this was Walker/Dozier money, with the rest coming from Candler. Charley Pemberton probably paid nothing for his share.

  This “first” Coca-Cola Company is not a part of the official chain of title, nor is it ever mentioned in any corporate history. Asa Candler didn’t file for incorporation of The Coca-Cola Company (the legal basis for the current company, always spelled with a capital T) until 1892. He must have been extremely nervous about the existence of this prior company and its partners, any of whom could have caused considerable trouble for him, at least until the charter expired in 1908. The existence of this early version of the Coca-Cola Company explains some mysterious endorsement letters addressed as early as 1888 to the “Coca-Cola Company.” In an 1898 pamphlet announcing the grand opening of his new Coca-Cola factory, Candler slipped, asserting that the company had begun in March 1888, a clear reference to this otherwise well-buried legality.

  ASA WRITES TO WARREN

  On April 10, 1888, shortly after incorporating the company, Asa Candler wrote to his younger brother Warren, a Methodist minister then editing a religious journal in Nashville. After advising Warren not to accept the presidency of Emory College because it didn’t pay enough (Warren ignored him, establishing an important link between Emory and the Candlers), Asa went on:

  You know how I suffer with headaches. Well some days ago, a friend suggested that I try Coco-Cola. I did & was relieved. Some days later I again tried it & was again relieved. I determined to find out about it—investigation showed that it was owned by parties unable to put it fairly before the people. I determined to put money into it & a little influence. I put $500.00 of the first & am putting a goodly portion of what I have of the last.*

  Clearly, Candler was certain he had a winning drink, and he was prepared to promote it. In the remainder of the letter, he asked Warren to find a fountain outlet in Nashville for Coca-Cola, saying he would send two free gallons of syrup as an introductory offer. While adopting Robinson’s idea of giving out free tickets, he aimed to build up a direct mail list by soliciting customers’ addresses from Tennessee druggists. “I don’t want to make a merchant or peddler out of you,” Candler explained, as he did just that. “I enclose circulars. It is a fine thing—certain.”

  Just days after writing to his brother, Candler’s “influence” bore fruit. Eager to dispense with Charley Pemberton, Candler arranged to buy him out. On April 14, 1888, Charley Pemberton (with his father as cosigner) sold the remaining third of the Coca-Cola title to Walker, Candler & Company for $550 ($50 to be paid down, and $500 due in thirty days). Walker, Candler & Company comprised Woolfolk Walker, Asa Candler, and Joe Jacobs, though Jacobs and Candler later insisted that it was a “dummy” corporation, because Candler supplied all of the money.*

  Three days after putting $50 down on the Pembertons’ third of Coca-Cola, Candler added to his legal rights, buying out half of the Walker/Dozier title for $750 on April 17, 1888. Frank Robinson witnessed the document. Around this time, Candler rented Pemberton’s vacant old site at 107 Marietta Street, and the original apparatus for preparing Coca-Cola was once again trundled down Marietta Street from Jacobs’ basement to its old home, where Frank Robinson began producing Coca-Cola in earnest.

  THE FINAL ACT

  The hot Atlanta summer arrived in full force. John Pemberton lay dying of stomach cancer (per family lore, though “enteritis” is on the death certificate). Asa Candler pushed Coca-Cola, with Woolfolk Walker on the road for him. At this point, Candler must have cursed the incorporation with Charley Pemberton, who was now marketing a competing drink and had proved anything but a stable stockholder in the Coca-Cola Company. On June 2, 1888, Asa again wrote to brother Warren in Nashville. “We are doing moderately well with Coco Cola. Its only obstacle is that [Charley] Pemberton is continually offering a very poor article at a less price & the public who pay for Coco Cola & are not benefitted erroneously decide that it is a fraud.”

  At about this time, Dr. Pemberton, in an attempt to make everyone happy, told his partners that although the name Coca-Cola belonged to Charley, they could continue to use the same formula but sell it under a different trademark. When the uninspired title of Yum Yum failed to catch on, they switched to Koke (already a nickname for Coca-Cola). Murphey, disgusted with the whole scene and his discovery of Pemberton’s morphine addiction, withdrew from the partnership and went back to Barnesville.

  Thus, as the muggy heat of Atlanta turned oppressive in July and early August, three varieties of Coca-Cola were competing to assuage thirst, cure headache and hangover, and relieve that tired feeling.

  Even as he was dying, Pemberton struggled to continue his work. Several times in his final months, he staggered to his laboratory, attempting to perfect his last drink, a modified cola with celery extract. “He did not care anything about what he had already accomplished,” J. C. Mayfield said. “He wanted something new.” He never finished. On August 16, 1888, John Pemberton died at the age of fifty-seven, leaving behind a legacy of hard work, sound scholarship, poor business sense, shattered dreams, drug addiction, lawsuits, and a few patent medicines with quaint names that would be forgotten within a few years—Extract of Stillingia, Globe Flower Cough Syrup, Indian Queen Hair Dye, Triplex Liver Pills, French Wine Coca. His beloved and only child was an alcoholic who would die an apparent suicide six years later, and his widow would end her life a pauper. Still, Pemberton was, above all else, a gentle man, an obsessed scholar, a creative genius. He did not know it as he died, but his principal legacy was Coca-Cola, the drink that would make him famous and might have made him wealthy, had he lived long enough.

  The newspaper notice of Pemberton’s death called him “the oldest druggist of Atlanta and one of her best-known citizens . . . an especially popular gentleman.” Asa Candler, weeping fat crocodile tears, called all the druggists of the city together at his store to suggest they close their establishments for the day of his funeral. “Mr. Candler paid Dr. Pemberton a beautiful tribute of respect, speaking of his lovable nature and many virtues,” the newspaper reported. “He voiced, he said, the feelings of all present that ‘our profession has lost a good and active member.’” Candler served as a pallbearer at the Atlanta funeral ceremony, before the casket was whisked to an unmarked grave in Columbus. Years later, Candler protested, “Why, I suppose Dr. Pemberton felt I was one of his best friends in this town.”

  Candler wasted no time consolidating his claim to Coca-Cola. Exactly two weeks after Pemberton’s death, on August 30, 1888, he bought the remaining interest of Woolfolk Walker and Margaret Dozier for $1,000, payable in a series of notes. Now, except for the technicality of the Walker, Candler & Company ownership, Asa Candler had staked a solid legal claim to Coca-Cola. He had paid a total of $2,300, according to the official chain of title.
By May 1, 1889, he was calling himself the drink’s sole proprietor.

  FORGERY AND OTHER JUICY TIDBITS

  There are, however, weak links in the chain Candler forged. Even Candler’s son, in the official biography of his father, noted that “this is the factual chain of title, established by attorneys and accepted by the courts, of the ownership of Coca-Cola. Behind these bare facts, there are probably others which would be interesting to know. . . .” Mrs. M. C. Dozier would have agreed.

  Margaret Dozier showed up in 1914 at the age of sixty-five, insisting that she had never sold her share of the formula. A dithery witness on the stand, she nonetheless appeared quite certain about the vital issues: “I did not sign any paper at all conveying any interest to Asa G. Candler or anyone else. Most positively I never received a cent.” Her brother Woolfolk had “charge of the whole thing,” she said, complaining that he told her nothing; “in fact, when he got control of it he never came near me at all.”

  Two handwriting experts who looked at Mrs. Dozier’s signatures on the questionable chain of title documents (those of April 17 and August 30, 1888) agreed that the April Dozier signature is a forgery.* The August signature may be authentic, but at least one of the experts couldn’t be sure. It seems likely that Woolfolk Walker, perhaps with Asa Candler’s knowledge, forged his sister’s signature, at least on the April document.

  Walker himself vanished immediately after signing over the rights to Candler at the end of August. His sister testified that he left town without even saying goodbye, and, though she wrote repeatedly to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he was rumored to reside, he never answered her. His disappearance was suspiciously providential for Asa Candler.

  But that’s not the end of the forgery. John Pemberton’s signature on the crucial April 14, 1888, sale to Walker, Candler & Company is a fake. According to handwriting expert George Pearl, the writing is “way, way out of natural variation for this signature to be genuine. The writing is not smooth and fast but rather slow and unsure, wondering where to go next. . . . This is a simulated signature and not a very good one at that.”

  Though there is no way to know with any certainty, Charley Pemberton is the most likely one to have forged the signature. At the same time, he tried to contrast and obscure his own handwriting by signing with a large flourish and much spilled ink. But why would Charley Pemberton have committed the forgery? Did he really need the resulting $550 that badly? It is more probable that he had made some kind of deal with Asa Candler. Candler apparently wrote the body of the contract itself in his distinctively hasty script.

  Although it is difficult (and presumptuous) to play armchair detective so many years later, it seems likely that Candler was the shadowy figure behind both the Pemberton and Dozier forgeries, which occurred within three days of one another in April of 1888. Both forgeries were committed within a week of Asa Candler’s admission to his brother Warren that he was exerting “a little influence” to gain full control of Coca-Cola.†

  The other jarring note in the chain of title stems from Mrs. Pemberton’s family. Her sister Elberta was convinced that Asa Candler had bought the formula, not from Pemberton or Walker, but from Mrs. Pemberton soon after the funeral. Elberta Newman taught her grandchildren never to drink Coca-Cola, because she did not want them to contribute even a nickel to Candler’s ill-gotten fortune. “Your Auntie sold the Formula to Asa Candler in his own hand,” she later wrote to her son, “and he remarked to her, he was making a risk, but if he made any thing from it he would give her a home and she would never want. He never gave her a cent. She believed to her last day that he would keep his promise.”

  Elberta’s daughter Mary overheard Mrs. Pemberton telling her father of the transaction. When her father found that Candler had paid only $300 for the formula, he told her she should have had a lawyer. “Oh! Asa said he would give me a fine home and handsome income if he made anything out of it,” Mrs. Pemberton said. “My aunt was a devoted Methodist,” Mary explained, “and as Asa Candler taught in the Methodist Sunday school she felt sure he would keep his word.”

  Other versions of the family story place the blame for the sale of Coca-Cola on the dissolute Charley Pemberton, who was supposed to have sold the formula while drunk or in return for being bailed out of jail, where he was languishing for disorderly conduct. Yet another relative said that Charley had cajoled his mother into selling to Candler for $600, which he soon spent on drink. Regardless of the exact story, the entire clan was convinced, along with nephew Wilson, that “there was some crookedness about the deal.”

  On June 23, 1894, Charley Pemberton was discovered unconscious, lying flat on his face in a tiny bedroom above the Oriole Restaurant. A stick of crude opium was found on a chair nearby. The incident was fully reported in the sensation-loving Atlanta newspapers: “Whether the opium was taken with suicidal intent is not known, but for three hours Pemberton was walked, rubbed, beaten, and dosed.” The reporter went on to comment that Charley was the son of “one of the most noted physicians Atlanta has ever had. He was the discoverer of the famous Coco-Cola and left his son in charge of the patent when he died.”

  After ten days of “intense suffering,” Charley Pemberton died at Grady Hospital at the age of forty. His mother remained by his side during the ordeal. The notice of this death said that “Charley Pemberton was well known in Atlanta,” that his father was “a physician of learning and distinction,” and repeated that Charley had inherited the formula, which “he afterwards disposed of . . . for a comparatively small sum.” Although Charley was an acknowledged alcoholic, this is the first indication that he took opium. His death could have resulted from an accidental overdose, suicide, or murder. A cousin later wrote that “there was something mysterious about Charley’s death.” Monroe King, a Pemberton expert, believed that suicide was unlikely: “Remember that Charley Pemberton had worked for years with his father and knew the drug trade intimately. He would have chosen a much more effective way to kill himself had he chosen to do so. Taking raw opium instead of a massive dose of morphine makes no sense.” At any rate, Asa Candler must have been relieved that the unpredictable, unstable Pemberton was gone.

  The allegations of some sort of questionable activities were verified by Price Gilbert, a lawyer who apparently did a good deal of work for Asa Candler. Gilbert told a friend that “if I told what I knew about the early days of Coca-Cola, what I said would be very embarrassing,” adding that “I’m not going to tell the maneuvering we did to keep afloat in the early days of the company.” In 1910, during one of the Company’s moves to larger quarters, Asa Candler, over the objections of his nephew, ordered that the earliest records of The Coca-Cola Company be burned, leaving only the official chain of title intact. Beyond that, only circumstantial evidence and rumor remained to haunt him.

  As rusty and weak as the chain of title may be, though, it is quite likely that we would view Coca-Cola Extract and Syrup as just one more quaint creation of Dr. Pemberton if Asa Candler had not taken control of it. In the end, Rob Stephens, yet another relation of Mrs. Pemberton, was probably correct when he wrote:

  Coca-Cola became a go because it was pushed and pushed by an energetic man. If the Pembertons had not sold the formula it probably would have stayed in an old drink somewhere and been lost in time. I think Cousin Cliff always thought Mr. Candler robbed her and Charley, but I doubt if it can be said he did. He paid them for something of no use to them and he made it a go by his own efforts.

  __________________

  * The contract specified that Mrs. Dozier was to get a third and Walker the balance. Because they were buying two-thirds of the entire formula, that comes out to these odd fractions.

  * It appears that although Candler claimed that he had exercised full control over Coca-Cola since late 1887, he was only now getting around to tasting it, and he still couldn’t spell it correctly. Or perhaps he was only now trying it as a cure for his perennial headaches. It is likely that the $500 referred to Candler’s contribut
ion to the Coca-Cola Company capitalization.

  * If Candler really was the sole buyer, why would he bother to camouflage it? John Pemberton probably bore a grudge against Candler for buying out his entire stock of drugs and lab equipment five years earlier, when Pemberton was too sick to protect himself from predatory partners. The sick inventor had sued Candler along with everyone else involved. In a bitter affidavit, Pemberton wrote that he was “now lying perfectly helpless and utterly dependent upon the proceeds of the partnership.” If allowed to proceed, the sale would be his “present and utter ruin.” Nonetheless, Pemberton lost the suit and his lab.

  * Using three genuine signatures as a standard, George Pearl of Atlanta, Georgia, stated that the April 17, 1888, signature was a forgery, though he was uncertain about the August signature. John Brullmann of Jackson Heights, New York, pronounced the April signature a forgery.

  † Candler later filed a copy of the April 14 document as part of his official chain of title with the U.S. Patent Office. In doing so, he submitted a completely new document, all written in a single anonymous hand. Whoever copied it over mistook Charley Pemberton’s middle initial, writing it as an “M” rather than an “N.” Candler may have deliberately had the document recopied to avoid submitting the forged signature.

  ~ 4 ~

  Asa Candler: His Triumphs and Headaches

  If people knew the good qualities of Coca-Cola as I know them, it would be necessary for us to lock the doors of our factories and have a guard with a shotgun to make the people line up to buy it.