Benjamin Franklin Bomar (1816-1868) was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to Reverend Thomas Bomar (1770-1830) and Elizabeth Carlton High Bomar (1782-1856). In 1839, Bomar took one course at the Medical College of South Carolina at Charleston. In 1840, he moved to Cumming, Georgia, to practice medicine; in the same year, he met and married Sarah Elizabeth Lumpkin Haynes Bomar (1826-1916). They had six children: Thomas Haynes Bomar (1842-1927), who served in Company L, 38th Regiment of Georgia Volunteer Infantry; William Andrew Bomar (1848-1905), a courier in Virginia; Amaryllis Bomar (1846-1919), who married Charles Henry Killian (1837-1891), a Confederate veteran; Robert Alexander Bomar (1848-1851); Juliet Tallulah Bomar (1854-1855); and Richard High Bomar (1856-1931). Benjamin Bomar's brother, General Alexander Carlton Bomar (1808-1864) served in the Mexican-American War.

In 1847, Bomar moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and opened a general merchandise business on Whitehall Street. He was elected a member of the first Atlanta City Council in 1848 and became Atlanta's second mayor in January 1849. During his term as mayor, Bomar co-founded Atlanta's first successful newspaper, the Daily Intelligencer, and selected six acres of land to serve as the Oakland Cemetery. In 1854, Bomar became the first clerk of the Fulton County Superior Court. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he volunteered and served as the paymaster of Georgia' 28th Infantry, at a rank of captain. Additional biographical information on the Killian family has not been determined.