Thomas Edward Brown was born in Detroit, Michigan on January 22, 1881. His father, a staunch abolitionist, the youngest son of a Windsor White family that had emigrated from England in 1775, was active in local Democratic Party politics. Brown's mother was the daughter of an old Virginia family whose members had fought in the American Revolutionary War. Thomas Edward Brown married Anna Blandine Hill (1876-1958), the daughter of William Henry Hill, who had been a colonel in the Confederate army during the Civil War years
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Anna Blandine Hill's parents were landowners in South Carolina. She came to Detroit as a child. The Browns were strong Democrats and active members of St.
John's Episcopal Church. The Browns' home at 717 Wetherly Avenue was visited by many prominent Democrats, including William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Debs. Young Thomas Edward Brown began to read widely at an early age and his first published writing appeared when he was only six years old under the name "Teddy." After spending his early years in Detroit, Virginia and Texas, Brown moved to Nashville with his family at age 11 where he attended Central High School and Davidson College.
At age 15, he sold his first short story to McClure's Magazine. For several years he worked as a reporter for various Nashville newspapers until he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to take up journalism full-time there at age 21. He also studied law briefly but never practiced law.
Thomas Edward Brown married Anna Blandine Hill (1876-1958) on June 5th 1903; they remained married until her death on September 24th 1958; they had three children: Mary Lee (1905-1968), Thomas Edward (1907-1974) and Edith (1908-1993).
Brown's first book "The Bridge" was published by The Macmillan Company; it told how he had been brought up as a boy by his mother after his father died when he was six years old from tuberculosis resulting from exposure as a Union soldier during the Civil War ("The Bridge").
In 1913 it was made into a silent movie starring John Gilbert as young Teddy Brown and Lillian Gish as Mother Brown by Robertson-Robertson Pictures Corporation playing at various theaters throughout the country.
In 1915 he published "Sure Grit", which told of his life as a cowboy for 10 years on a ranch near Mason City, Texas where he broke broncos for Tom Mix who wrote about him in his autobiography "
