By Ed Marsh, ©1999

Several Candler researchers have asked me what the controversy is about. What is the Candler Legend?

In 1890, Georgia Governor Allen Daniel Candler wrote a book entitled The Candler Family From 1650 To 1890. Several years later, he reprinted the book under the title Colonel William Candler Of Georgia, His Ancestry And Progeny. I have copies of both books. Word for word, Governor Candler wrote,

"In this province [North Carolina] William Candler's father settled, his son William and probably another son, was born there, and soon after the birth of his son, he died there, being still a young man. Here we find William Candler, in 1760; here he married, as is shown by the records, and here his three oldest children were born. If he had a brother, and family tradition said he had, he was probably the progenitor of all the Candlers in North Carolina and Virginia. They trace their lineage back to Zachariah Candler, who appeared in western North Carolina about the beginning of the present century, and belonged to the first generation after the War of the Revolution. They do not know whether they are descended from the English or the Irish stock, but the fact that their earliest ancestor, of whom they have any account, lived soon after the war in that state from which William Candler came a few years before the war, strengthens the supposition that the father of Zachariah Candler and his brother John, who died in Tennessee in the early part of the present century, was the brother of William Candler of Georgia."

Gov. Candler wrote that his own great-great-grandparents came from Ireland but he did not know their names (they were Daniel and Hannah Candler of South River, VA). He stated that his uncle, Ignatius Few, had written down this tradition in a family Bible, but 1] where is that Bible, and 2] why has no one else cited this source?

Gov. Candler said that Col. William Candler; 1] was married in North Carolina, 2] his father died there shortly after William's birth, 3] William began his family there. He said that this was "tradition." How reliable is that tradition? It is not true.

William joined the South River, Virginia Quakers in 1755 remaining active there until his marriage to a South River Quaker girl in 1761? He was the executor of his father's estate in 1765. His name appears regularly in Virginia court proceedings and Quaker records until the late 1760's.

Gov. Candler said of the North Carolina Candlers, "They do not know whether they are descended from the English or the Irish stock!" Can we assume that Georgia Candlers did know this tradition in the 1890's? I don't think so. I don't think any of us knew it until Gov. Candler's book came along.

Candler researchers have told me that George W. Candler of Murphy, North Carolina and Robert Achilles Russell of Rustburg, Virginia (a Virginia Candler descendant and serious genealogist) also wrote about this Candler tradition in the early twentieth century. This is only partially true. It should be noted that Gov. Candler presented a copy of his book to George W. Candler in 1894 and G. W. gave a copy to Robert Russell in 1937. G. W. Candler certainly retold the Irish Candler story with gusto. Robert Russell, seems only to have referred readers to A. D. Candler's book when they were looking for something about the family prior to the South River settlement. Both men cite Gov. Candler as the source.

This makes the issue even clearer; the full burden of proof lies upon A. D. Candler's sources. These sources; the Ignatius Few Bible history and records of the Candler's early sojourn in North Carolina, if they exist, are a legacy for all the descendants of Daniel and Hannah Candler