Mary Brown was born on December 31, 1812 in New York City, the daughter of Bush G. Brown, a shipbuilder and master carpenter (b. May 9, 1783 in New York City; d. August 10, 1821 in Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi) and Hannah Daniels Brown (b. December 27, 1783 in New York City; d. September 1822 in New York City).

The children of Bush G. Brown and Hannah Daniels Brown were:

• Eliza Daniels Brown was born between July 26 and August 7, 1808 in New York City, New York and died July 17, 1848 in Hamilton County, Ohio
• Ephraim Daniels Brown was born October 15, 1804 in New York City, New York and died Mar 8, 1880 in Bergen Point, New Jersey
• Mary Livingston Brown was born December 31, 1812 in New York City, New York and died June 3, 1897 in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio.
• Cornelia Brown was born ca. 1813 in New York City, New York and died ca. 1898 in New York or New Jersey
• William Brown was born May 3, 1815 in New York City, New York and died before September 22, 1822 in New York City, New York
• Emmeline "Emma" Brown was born in 1818 in New York City, New York and died in February 1887 in Normal, McLean County, Illinois
• Julia Augusta Brown was born May 27, 1819 in New York City, New York and died in 1900 in Normal, McLean County, Illinois

Bush Brown died of yellow fever while on a business trip to Louisiana and Mississippi – where he had gone to set up a grist mill manufacturing enterprise – leaving his widow, Hannah Daniels Brown, and six children behind in New York City. The following year Hannah died, also of yellow fever, leaving six orphans: Ephraim Daniels Brown, age 18, and his five sisters. Julia, the youngest child, was only three years old when her mother died.

Bush and Hannah Brown's children went to live with various relatives and friends. Mary and Julia were taken in by their mother's dearest friend, Mary Livingston to the Livingston Manor in Clermont, Columbia County, New York. An early handwritten record of the children of Bush and Hannah Brown showed the third child as "Mary Brown," but later her name invariably appeared as "Mary Livingston Brown" or "Mary L. Brown," indicating that she took the name "Livingston" to express her gratitude to her mother's friend, Mary Livingston.

When Mary was about 24 years old, she came to Ohio, traveling nearly all of the way in a canal boat. She lived with her sister, Eliza, who had preceded her by several years and was married to Elisha Peterson.

Not long after relocating to Ohio, Mary met a young widower, Benjamin Church Mead (who had a seven-year-old son, James Watson Cunningham Mead).

Benjamin Church Mead was born on November 4, 1804 in Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut. He was the son of Jeremiah Mead, Jr., who was a soldier in the Revolutionary War (b. 1755 in Greenwich, Connecticut; d. on October 20, 1831 in Butler County, Ohio) and Esther Peck Mead (b. on July 12, 1756 in Greenwich; d. 1819 in Butler County, Ohio).

Benjamin was a young boy when his large family left Greenwich for southern Ohio in 1817.

Their daughter Emma Mead Beeler would later write about their meeting in her family history: "He stood high in the community and came of a good old substantial family from Connecticut. He persuaded her to share his hearth and home. They were married in 1840 and went immediately to his home one mile north of Springdale which they called Locust Farm . . . Mary never regretted in uniting her life with his. The ten short years they lived together proved him to be a kind and considerate husband and a loving and devoted father. Six children were born to them, four dying in infancy. In 1850 the dear father entered into rest. Mary survived him 47 years and died at the age of 85."

The children of Benjamin Church Mead and Mary Livingston Brown Mead were:

• Walter Scott Mead, b. March 6, 1841, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio; d. March 23, 1843, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio
• Emma Walker Mead, b. September 19, 1842, Springdale, Hamilton Co., Ohio; d. August 11, 1928, New York City, New York; m. John Beeler, September 19, 1865, Towanda, McLean County, Illinois; b. March 16, 1837, Sharonville, Hamilton County, Ohio; d. February 12, 1920, Denver, Denver County, Colorado.
• Eliza Perlee Mead, b. ca. 1844, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio; d. Oct. 20, 1902, Cincinnati, Hamilton Co., Ohio.
• Frances Mead, b. ca. 1845, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio; d. ca. 1846, Springdale
• Frances Etta Mead, b. July 7, 1846, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio; d. August 5, 1849, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio.
• Elmore C. "B. C." Mead, b. May 25, 1849, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio; d. August 30, 1851, Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio.

Benjamin died of cholera during a cholera epidemic on August 12, 1850 in Springdale, Hamilton County, Ohio.

On May 11, 1853, Mary Livingston Brown Mead – at the time a 41-year-old widow with two daughters, Eliza, 13 and Emma, 11 – married William Durland Hilts (b. February 9, 1806 in Morris County, New Jersey), a widower with five sons and four daughters, who had been the appraiser of her husband's estate. There were no children from this marriage.

William Hilts died on September 26, 1874 in Illinois. He is buried at Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington (McLean County), Illinois. His Find-a-Grave memorial number is 13989312.

Mary Livingston Brown Mead Hilts spent the last 15 years of her life at the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Emma and John Beeler, in Walnut Hills, Stark County, Ohio. She died in Cincinnati on June 3, 1897 in her 85th year.