Edwin Broun Lipscomb was born on August 11, 1851, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, to Robert and Elizabeth Lipscomb. His father was a Methodist Episcopal clergyman who owned $2,600 of personal property by 1860. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1850s, and by 1870, Lipscomb was working as a clerk. He moved to Virginia in the early 1880s, and he married Jennie Watson Warren on December 1, 1881. Their daughter Virginia was born around 1898. They lived in Staunton, Virginia, and Lipscomb worked as a merchant. By 1900, he employed at least two Black servants. He died in Staunton of cardiovascular disease on March 27, 1936.