This is Uncle Tarzan: Getting to know the infamous runner Tarzan Brown

I won my only fight with “Tarzan” Brown.

Or so my mother told me. I was only about three at the time, so I don’t really remember it.

He was walking down Canal Street in Westerly when my parents spotted him and pulled the car over to say “Hi.” I was in my car seat and Tarzan leaned through the back window and began tickling me.

POW.

Tarzan laughed, saying “You’re not supposed to hit your Uncle Tarzly.”

My uncle. That’s right, Ellison M. Brown – more famously known as Tarzan – was the little brother of my grandmother, Myra D. Brown.

As I grew older legends and stories of Tarzan Brown were spoken of throughout South County. One man told me of the time Tarzan had a flat tire, so he put his car on the railroad tracks and pulled it from Westerly to Charlestown. Another person told of Tarzan running his last race in 1955 – when a brash Naval recruit laughed at the old man who said he had once been a great runner. The young man bet his leather jacket that he could beat Tarzan in a race.

I wonder what Tarzan ever did with his new coat?

Some recalled Tarzan running races barefoot, others remembered that he would have such huge leads during a race that he’d sit on the side of the road and rest until the next runner appeared.

And Uncle Tarzan had his own stories. He was walking through the woods when he came to a river. He decided he wanted fish for dinner, but he didn’t have a fishing pole.

So, Tarzan said, he dove into the river to catch a fish by hand, But he swam so fast that he went past all the fish and had to turn around and wait for the fish to catch up to him.

It was a hot, sticky fall day in 1975 and the Buckler-Johnston Funeral Home in Westerly was overflowing with Narragansett Indians – some in regalia – mingling with local members of the community and several serious-looking men in dark suits. Like the inside of the parlor, the parking lot out back, and the sidewalk out front, were crammed with people.

Hundreds of people.

Who was Uncle Tarzan, I wondered?

He was once the greatest long-distance runner in the world; a two-time winner of the Boston Marathon, a 1936 U.S. Olympian. He once won the New York marathon, then hitchhiked through the night to Nashua, New Hampshire, arriving minutes before the race. Tarzan won that marathon too.

At least twice – in non-sanctioned races – his time bested world records.

Who was Ellison (Tarzan) Brown? He was a man who loved the outdoors, sometimes disappearing into the woods, living off the land for a week at a time.

He loved his family and his tribe. He was a hero for a Narragansett tribal community that had been told by the state some 50 years earlier that they were no longer Indians.

Photo from The Legend of Tarzan Brown, Part I – WESTERLY RI (seewesterly.com)