John William Grant (1867-1938) was born in West Point, Georgia, to William Daniel Grant (1837-1901) and Sallie Fannie Reid (1839-1920). He had two siblings: Sarah Frances Grant (1870-1945) and William Reid Grant. John William Grant’s grandfather, John Thomas Grant (1813-1887), founded Fannin, Grant and Company. John W. Grant graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens in 1886 and earned a master's degree in accounting from the Eastman Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He married Annie Martin Inman (1873- ?), daughter of Hugh T. Inman, on April 11, 1893, and they had five children: Margaret VanDyke Wilmer (1894-1974); William D. (1895-1931); Hugh Inman (1896-1906); John W. Inman Jr. (1901-1972); and Annie Inman (1903-1993).

John Marshall Slaton (1866-1955) was born to Nancy Jane Martin and William Franklin Slaton near Greenville, Georgia. He attended Sam Bailey Institute in Griffin, Georgia. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1874, where he graduated from Boys High School in 1880. In 1886, he earned his Master of Arts degree from the University of Georgia. Slaton married Sarah Frances Grant in 1898; the couple had no children. Slaton represented Fulton County in the Georgia House of Representatives (1896-1909), and was Speaker of the House (1905-1909). In addition, he represented the thirty-fifth district in the Georgia State Senate (1909-1913), serving as President of the Senate in 1909. He was appointed acting governor when Hoke Smith was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1911. He then was elected Georgia's sixtieth governor in 1913, winning all but ten counties, and served until 1915 when he political career ended as a direct result of commuting Leo Frank's death sentence to life imprisonment after his conviction for Mary Phagan's murder.