Rowell was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, and was the great grandson of John S. Rowell of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin (1825–1907), noted pioneer inventor and manufacturer of farm machinery. He moved with his family to Chetlo Harbor, Washington in 1912 where his father Joseph C. N. Rowell and Uncle Douglas Rowell founded the Chetlo Harbor Packing Company, a salmon cannery. After canning 10,000 cases of salmon in 1914, the cannery failed in 1915, Ted and his family moved to Warroad, Minnesota, eventually settling at Wheeler's Point on Lake of the Woods, north of the town of Baudette, Minnesota.