Home > John Pemberton

He was the son of James Clifford Pemberton (b. 1803 NC) and Martha L. Worsham Gent (b. about 1791 VA). The Pembertons married July 20, 1828, in Crawford County, and John was born July 8, 1831. Martha was the daughter of Archer Worsham (b. VA) and Nancy Clark Smith, who lived in Baldwin Co. The Pemberton family moved to Rome, and John attended medical school in Macon, receiving his degree at the age of 19. Sometime later he received a graduate degree in pharmacy. He married Wesleyan student Ann Eliza Clifford Lewis and moved to Columbus in 1853. The couple had one son, Charles, born in 1854.

John was a druggist in Columbus, GeorgiaColumbus is a city located in Muscogee County, Georgia. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 186,291. The city is the county seat of Muscogee County 1. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area and built a laboratory where he made and sold medicines, photographic chemicals, and cosmetic products including a popular perfume he called Sweet Southern Bouquet. He moved his family to Atlanta in 1870. Pemberton served on the first pharmacy licensing board in the state, established a modern chemical laboratory that was the first state-run facility to test soil and crop chemicals, and was a trustee of Emory University School of Medicine. He fought for the ConfederacyThe Confederate States of America CSA also known as the Confederacy was the confederacy formed by the southern states that seceded from the United States during the period of the American Civil War. The 11 states of the Confederacy were Alabama, Arkansas,, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the 23rd Georgia Cavalry Battallion . Some sources say his severe wounds from the war led to morphine and cocaine addictions.

John began work on a cocaCoca Leaves of the coca plant. Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Malpighiales Family: Erythroxylaceae Genus Erythroxylon Species coca Binomial name Erythroxylon coca Coca Erythroxylon coca is a and cola nut -based nerve tonic called Pemberton’s French Wine Cola when he was a druggist and chemist in Columbus. In 1866 he was selling the product through Atlanta druggists when the city passed a prohibition law. So he adjusted the formula, renamed the product Coca-Cola (as suggested by partner Frank Robinson), and marketed it as both a "delicious, exhilarating, refreshing and invigorating" soda-fountain and a "temperance drink."

When the prohibition law was repealed after just one year, Pemberton returned to concentration on his medicinal coca and wine formula, leaving development of the new fountain drink to his son Charles. He died Aug. 16, 1888, only a few months after the Coca-Cola Co. was incorporated. He is buried in Linwood Cemetery in Columbus, Georgia.