Theophilus Brown was a friend and admirer of the
Concord Transcendentalists
Amos Bronson Alcott,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and
Henry David Thoreau. A resident of Worcester, Massachusetts, Brown, as well as his wife, Sarah Ann Brown, offered them hospitality during their visits, hosted Thoreau, hosted Alcott, and opened their home as a site for Alcott’s Conversations. He and his friends,
H. G. O. Blake,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
David A. Wasson, and
Daniel Ricketson, were especially interested in Thoreau. Higginson praised Brown as “the freshest and most original mind in Worcester” and “rather the wit of the city.”