Born in Marietta, Ohio, to an English immigrant and a Pennsylvania-born mother, Brough was orphaned at the age of 11. To support himself, he became a printer's apprentice, and later received three years of part-time education at Ohio University, where he worked part-time as a reporter for the "Athens Mirror". He rose to become a newspaper publisher in Marietta and then in Lancaster, where he and his brother Charles purchased the "Ohio Eagle", a paper that espoused the views of the Democratic Party.