Tarlton Brown, born in 1757 in Virginia, moved to South Carolina at an early age and settled in what was then Orangeburg District near Briar Creek and the Savannah River. He enlisted as a private in the South Carolina militia in 1776, was commissioned a lieutenant in 1778, and was promoted to captain in 1780. During the Revolution he served under Generals Francis Marion and Andrew Pickens. After the war he served as coroner and sheriff of what then was Winton County, then in the South Carolina House from 1792 to 1797 and in the Senate from 1797 to 1799, resigning to become sheriff of the new Barnwell District, a position he held from 1799 to 1804. Brown wrote his memoirs in 1843, and they were first published in 1862. He died in 1845 at age 88.