View source for Ellison Brown

{{Short description|Native American runner and Olympian}}
{{Infobox person
| name          = Ellison Brown
| image         = File:1936 Dedham Mug Hunt.jpg
| alt           = Black-and-white photo of men running
| caption       = The start of a [[History_of_Dedham,_Massachusetts,_1900–1999#1930s|1936 road race]] in Oakdale Square, [[Dedham, Massachusetts]]. Brown wears bib number 22.
| birth_name    = <!-- only use if different from name -->
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1913|09|22}}
| birth_place   = [[Westerly, Rhode Island]]
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|1975|08|23|1913|09|22}}
| death_place   = [[Westerly, Rhode Island]]
| other_names   = Tarzan Brown, Deerfoot
| citizenship   = [[Narragansett Indian Tribe]] and U.S.
| education     = Tomaquag School
| occupation    = marathoner, mason, fisherman
| years_active  = 
| known_for     = winning the Boston Marathon twice
| notable_works = 
}}
'''Ellison Myers Brown''' (September 22, 1913 – August 23, 1975),<ref name="SR" /> widely known as '''Tarzan Brown''', was a [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] [[marathoner]].

Brown (also known as Deerfoot<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ward |first1=Michael |title=Ellison "Tarzan" Brown: The Narragansett Indian Who Twice Won the Boston Marathon |date=2006 |publisher=McFarland Inc. |location=Jefferson, NC |isbn=9780786424160 |page=2 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ellison_Tarzan_Brown/Tq-am9pj0I4C}}</ref> ) was a citizen of the [[Narragansett Tribe]] of [[Rhode Island]] and a two-time winner of the [[Boston Marathon]] in 1936 (2:33:40) and 1939 (2:28:51) and 1936 U.S. Olympian. He ran the marathon in the [[1936 Summer Olympics]] in [[Berlin]] and also qualified for the [[1940 Summer Olympics]], which were ultimately canceled due to the outbreak of [[World War II]].

Brown is one of two [[List of Native American sportspeople|Indigenous North Americans]] to have won the Boston Marathon (the other was [[Thomas Longboat]] ([[Onondaga people|Onondaga]]) from the [[Six Nations of the Grand River]] in Canada, who won the 1907 marathon). Brown is the only Indigenous person who won the Boston Marathon twice. He was inducted into the [[Haskell Indian Nations University|American Indian Athletic Hall of Fame]] in 1973.

Brown set the American men's record for the marathon at the 1939 Boston Marathon (2:28:51) and at the 1940 marathon in [[Salisbury, Massachusetts|Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts]] (2:27:30).<ref name=NYRR>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nyrr.org/sites/default/files/World%20and%20U.S.%20Records.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2015-12-07 |archive-date=2015-10-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151005131218/http://www.nyrr.org/sites/default/files/World%20and%20U.S.%20Records.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

== Early life and education ==
Brown was born on September 22, 1913, in the Potter Hill section of [[Westerly, Rhode Island]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=McBurney |first=Christian |title=Tarzan Brown of the Narragansett Tribe, Legendary Marathon Runner |url=http://smallstatebighistory.com/tarzan-brown-of-the-narragansett-tribe-legendary-marathon-runner/ |access-date=2023-03-06 |website=smallstatebighistory.com}}</ref> to Narragansett parents Byron Otis Brown (1879–1943) and Grace Ethel (Babcock) Brown (1876–1935).<ref name="ward13">{{cite book |last1=Ward |first1=Michael |title=Ellison "Tarzan" Brown: The Narragansett Indian Who Twice Won the Boston Marathon |date=2006 |publisher=McFarland Inc. |location=Jefferson, NC |isbn=9780786424160 |page=13 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ellison_Tarzan_Brown/Tq-am9pj0I4C}}</ref> Brown had three sisters: Myra, Alice aka "Nina," and Grace; and three brothers:  Franklin, Elwin and Clifford.

Brown received minimal formal education. He studied [[Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum|Tomaquag School]] in [[Alton, Rhode Island|Alton]] for three years but left school by the seventh grade.<ref name="ward13"/>

He was nicknamed "Tarzan" as a boy. He was athletic, strong, and loved being outdoors.<ref name="ward13"/> He climbed trees and could swing from one branch to another, reminding those around his of [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]‘s [[Tarzan|famous fictional hero]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ward |first1=Michael |title=Ellison "Tarzan" Brown: The Narragansett Indian Who Twice Won the Boston Marathon |date=2006 |publisher=McFarland Inc. |location=Jefferson, NC |isbn=9780786424160 |page=14 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ellison_Tarzan_Brown/Tq-am9pj0I4C}}</ref>

== Athletic training ==
Brown was first noticed for his running talent when he was 12 years old. As Native American runner Horatio "Chief" Stanton was training for an upcoming race, his trainer Thomas "Tippy" Salimeno, Sr. watched as the boy ran, following after Stanton and trying to keep pace.

Salimeno took the young athlete under his wing when Brown turned 16 and began to train him, his first official steps to an illustrious career in marathon running that eventually saw Brown win the [[Boston Marathon]] in both 1936 and 1939 and become a member of the [[1936 Summer Olympics|1936 U.S. Olympic]] team.<ref name="ward">{{cite book | title = Ellison "Tarzan" Brown: The Narragansett Indian Who Twice Won the Boston Marathon | first = Michael | last = Ward | publisher = McFarland & Company | date = 2006-06-05 | isbn = 0-7864-2416-8 | url = https://archive.org/details/ellisontarzanbro00mich }}</ref> Salimeno once said, "Tarzan ran against people, not against numbers. He probably could have broke other records, but I never pushed him. When you're in a race you don't go out for records, you go out to win."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.eccentrix.com/members/billrod/tarzan.htm |title=The Best Racer of All |first=Bill |last=Rodriguez |work=Providence Journal-Bulletin |date=1981-04-19 |access-date=2007-03-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927222833/http://www.eccentrix.com/members/billrod/tarzan.htm |archive-date=September 27, 2007 }}</ref>

== Career ==
===Heartbreak Hill and 1936 Boston Marathon victory===
[[Boston Marathon|Heartbreak Hill]], an ascent over 0.4-mile (600&nbsp;m) between the 20- and 21-mile (32 and 34&nbsp;km) marks of the Boston Marathon, near [[Boston College]], is the last of four "[[Newton, Massachusetts|Newton]] Hills." These begin at the {{convert|16|mi|km|adj=on}} mark and challenge contestants with late climbs after the course's general downhill trend to that point. Though Heartbreak Hill itself rises only {{convert|88|ft|m}} vertically (from an elevation of {{convert|148|to|236|ft|m}}),<ref name="program">''Boston Marathon Official Program'', April 2005, p.68</ref> it comes at a point in the marathon distance where muscular [[glycogen]] stores are most likely to be depleted—a phenomenon referred to by marathoners as "[[Hit the wall|hitting the wall]]."

Brown had taken off so fast at the start of the 1936 Boston Marathon that the press followed the second runner [[John A. Kelley]] until the 20-mile mark, and it was on this hill that Kelley caught up to Brown. As Kelley overtook Brown—an amazing feat given the steady record-breaking pace Brown had set—Kelley, patted Brown on the back. What followed was a struggle between Brown, who took the lead on the downhills, and Kelley, who took the lead on the uphills, until Brown finally took the lead again to win the race and Kelley faded to a fifth-place finish. This struggle inspired reporter Jerry Nason to name the last Newton hill [[Boston Marathon#Heartbreak Hill|"Heartbreak Hill"]] because Brown "broke Kelley's heart" there.<ref name="ward"/>

===1936 Olympic Games  and iron man stunt===
Brown was selected to compete on the U.S. Olympic team for the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany, and was a teammate of the legendary [[track and field]] star [[Jesse Owens]].

There are various stories of what occurred while Brown was in Germany for the 1936 Olympics. It is known that for more than half of the Olympic marathon, Brown was in the top five when an issue with [[Cramp|leg cramps]] arose. As Tarzan stopped to try and tend to his leg cramps, a woman identified as a nurse came out of the crowd to assist Tarzan with working through the cramps when Olympic officials disqualified Tarzan. The media was harsh towards Brown upon his return to the United States.

Later in 1936, Brown won the venerable [[Port Chester, New York|Port Chester, NY]] marathon in 2:36:56.7 The next day, October 12, he won a second marathon, the New England Marathon Championship in [[Manchester, New Hampshire]], in 2:45:52,<ref name="SR">{{ cite web | url = https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/br/tarzan-brown-1.html | title = Tarzan Brown | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160423151039/http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/br/tarzan-brown-1.html | archive-date = 2016-04-23 }}</ref> which he later said was to prove to critics and detractors that he had not quit in the Berlin Olympics earlier that summer.

===1939 Boston Marathon victory===
In 1939, Brown was the first runner to break the 2:30 mark on the post-1926 Boston course.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Olympics Site Closed {{!}} Olympics at Sports-Reference.com |url=https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics.html |access-date=2023-03-06 |website=www.sports-reference.com}}</ref> According to official data from the Boston Athletic Association, many runners prior to 1926 finished the Boston Marathon in times under 2:30 (see [[List of winners of the Boston Marathon]]). Those runners competed on courses known to be shorter than the [[IAAF]]-defined marathon distance of 42.195 kilometers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.arrs.run/HP_BosMa.htm|title=Boston Marathon|website=Arrs.run|access-date=April 15, 2021}}</ref> After the 17-mile mark in the 1939 race, Brown also broke every checkpoint record.<ref name="legend">{{cite web | url = https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/specials/boston-marathon/2016/04/12/tarzanbrown/3e10dkGNnIUTOeHFDiHzyJ/story.html | title=Legend of Tarzan: Stories about two-time winner have legs|website=Bostonglobe.com}}</ref> He would later qualify for the 1940 U.S. Olympic team but the games were canceled due to [[European theatre of World War II|World War II's outbreak in Europe]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.nascsports.org/index.php?page=athletes&sub=brown&back=olympians | title = Ellison Myers 'Tarzan' Brown | work = Native American Sport Council | access-date = 2007-03-18 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061003114244/http://www.nascsports.org/index.php?page=athletes&sub=brown&back=olympians <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2006-10-03}}</ref>

===Other notable moments in the Boston Marathon===
In one of his earliest appearances as a runner in the 1935 race, Brown arrived in an outfit sewn together from one of his mother's old dresses by his sisters and worn sneakers that were falling apart. It was just two days after his mother had died.

Approximately 21 miles into the race, Brown removed his sneakers, threw them into the crowd and ran the rest of the race (approximately five miles) barefoot, finishing thirteenth. This act etched him in the memories of Boston Marathon fans and endeared him to the hearts of many more.

By 1938, he had officially become a fan favorite, as perhaps the most exciting, unorthodox and colorful character in the Boston Marathon's history. In the 1938 Boston Marathon, Brown was leading on what was an unseasonably warm day when midway through the race, he ran off the road, waved to the crowd and jumped into [[Lake Cochituate]] to swim and cool off. After a while, he returned and ran the rest of the course, though other runners had already long since passed by. Most notably, fellow Rhode Islander [[Les Pawson]] (of [[Pawtucket, Rhode Island]]) won that year. Pawson was one of Brown's top rivals and friends.

Brown was also seen arriving shortly before the start of the 1939 Boston Marathon eating [[hot dog]]s and drinking [[milkshake]]s just before the race; he claimed that he had missed breakfast. Incidents like these led members of the media to write harshly about Brown. Most [[Sports journalism|sports writers]] of the time period when Brown first started running competitively would use racist language, such as describing him as a "penniless [[redskin]] who would rather fish than work."<ref name="legend" />

==Personal life==
In addition to running, Brown worked as a [[Stonemasonry|stonemason]] and [[shellfish]] [[fisherman]]. He married a Narragansett woman named Ethel Wilcox (April 23, 1919–October 14, 2015), and had four children: Ellison Jr aka Sunny, Norman, Marlene and Ethel. He usually sold the medals and trophies he won while racing in order to support his family. Tom Derderian wrote, “The economy in these depression times provided little for most Americans and nothing for Indians. They were a conquered people living on the margin...Ellison Myers Brown, born on the margin, saw running as his only way out of poverty."<ref>{{cite book | title = The Boston Marathon: The History of the World's Premier Running Event | first = Tom | last = Derderian | isbn = 0-88011-479-7 | publisher = Human Kinetics Publishers | date = February 1996 | url = https://archive.org/details/bostonmarathonfi00derd }}</ref>

Brown’s nephews remember their uncle as a great [[Oral storytelling|storyteller]].

==Death and legacy==
Many varied accounts of the events on the evening of August 23, 1975, which led to Brown's death, have been told. Some state that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, waiting for a ride home, or that an altercation may have been taking place. However, amidst whatever confusion and circumstances there may have been, he was killed when a van hit him outside a [[Westerly, Rhode Island]], bar.<ref name="ward"/> Brown's injuries proved to be fatal.

There is an annual [[Mystic River]] road race named in his honor in [[Mystic, Connecticut]], every fall as part of a conference commemorating past [[List of Native American sportspeople|Native American runners]] of the Boston Marathon and to acknowledge the history and significance of running in many Indigenous American cultures. At the [[2016 Boston Marathon]] race, Narragansett tribal member Mikki Wosencroft ran and completed the Boston course as an acknowledged representative of Brown's family and the Narragansett tribe to honor him and his legacy.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.thewesterlysun.com/news/latestnews/8724626-154/womans-boston-run-a-tribute-to-tarzan-brown.html |title=Boston run a tribute to tribal hero Tarzan Brown|website=Thewesterlysun.com}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[List of winners of the Boston Marathon]]
*[[Narragansett people]]
*[[Native Americans in the United States]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite journal |last1=Scott III |first1=Mack H. |title=Running for a Nation: The Remarkable Story of Ellison "Tarzan" Brown |journal=Ethnohistory |date=1 April 2020 |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=221–245 |doi=10.1215/00141801-8025286}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060901093617/http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/mcnh_running/brown.html "Running Today: Olympians: Ellison Myers 'Tarzan' Brown] profile at Against the Winds: Traditions of Native American Running at Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

{{Footer Boston Marathon Champions Men}}
{{Footer US NC 15K run Men}}
{{Footer US NC 20K run Men}}
{{Footer US NC 25K run Men}}
{{Footer USA Track & Field 1936 Summer Olympics}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Ellison}}
[[Category:1914 births]]
[[Category:1975 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Native American people]]
[[Category:American male long-distance runners]]
[[Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics]]
[[Category:Black Native American people]]
[[Category:Boston Marathon male winners]]
[[Category:Narragansett people]]
[[Category:Native American people from Rhode Island]]
[[Category:Native American sportspeople]]
[[Category:Olympic track and field athletes for the United States]]
[[Category:Road incident deaths in Rhode Island]]
[[Category:20th-century American sportsmen]]