His father was a tenant farmer who moved the family to Michigan in 1858, and later enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War.

His mother moved the family back to Ohio, and "Willy" was "hired out" to a farmer who did not treat the boy well and neglected to provide for his education.

[1] When Willy was 15, the county placed him with a farmer named Jacob Gardner, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Philanthropist Mary Scranton Bradford agreed to underwrite his education at the Episcopal Seminary, Bexley Hall, at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

He finished his studies in 1883, but because he did not take all of his courses at Kenyon, he never received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Bexley.

Brown created the Helen Dunlap School for Mountain Girls and a seminary to train a local ministry in Arkansas.

The Level Plan rejected many practices of the Episcopal Church and angered many supporters, who promptly insisted that he leave.

[3] Brown began reading Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and other authors promoting a materialistic view of the world.

[2] "I no longer believed in a personal God, nor in a six-day creation, nor in a literal heaven and hell," Brown wrote.

Brown felt that his real ministry began at age 71 when he started lecturing to the working class and writing a wider variety of books.

Mrs. Bradford had Brownella Cottage built, across the street from Grace Church, as a wedding present for the couple.

A brick structure from 1866 that had originally been used as St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church was preserved on the site to serve as William's study.