Q ‘n’ A

Q1: Why did you choose the title “Townmania: Marcus Winchester and the Making of Memphis”?

A: I was at the Tennessee State Library and Archives, going through microfilm of letters from Marcus Winchester’s father, James Winchester, to his business partner, John Overton. In an 1818 letter, he wrote, “I am satisfied the effects of townmania will not last always, and perhaps not long.” The moment I saw that made-up word, I knew I had to use it in the title. It really captured the feeling of urgency at the time — they knew they had to move fast.

Q2: What inspired the cover design?

A: It was created by my good friend and talented Memphis designer Tom Martin. I wanted the focus to be an illustration of Marcus Winchester as a young man. The book is all about beginnings and youth, so that felt right. Tom came up with the idea of making the image appear as a reflection in the cobblestones that line the Mississippi River in downtown Memphis. Even though those cobblestones were laid a few decades after Winchester’s death, to me, nothing says downtown Memphis history like they do. The moment I saw Tom’s design, I knew it was the one.

Q3: Why did you title each chapter after a song, and how do those titles enhance the story you’re telling about Marcus Winchester and Memphis?

A: Memphis has always been a city with a soundtrack. That’s how it tells its story to the world. From W.C. Handy’s early blues to Al Green’s soul, and from Elvis to The Staple Singers, Memphis gave America music that crossed racial and cultural lines. In a time when cultural divisions still challenge us, I wanted to acknowledge those different voices at the beginning of each chapter. I think it helps anchor that part of Memphis to the story of Marcus and the other original settlers. You can check out a playlist of songs from the chapter titles on my website at rscottwilliams.info.

Q4: Each chapter also begins with an ad for an early Memphis business. What’s the significance of that?

A: All the ads came from “Rainey’s Memphis City Directory” from 1855–56. Marcus Winchester and surveyor William Lawrence first arrived from Nashville by flatboat in 1819. They pulled up into the Memphis mud and found a rugged but enterprising mix of flatboat pilots, Native Americans, fur trappers and traders. Less than 40 years later, the city was packed with all types of businesses serving people coming in by river and road. They were selling supplies, offering places to eat and stay and helping folks trade cotton and other crops. Since Marcus died the same year that directory came out, those ads feel like proof that the city had become what he first envisioned.

Q5: Speaking of advertising, John Overton’s promotion of Memphis sounds like early American marketing at its finest. What does this reveal about how cities in the South were “sold” in the era of “townmania,” and how does that compare to how cities try to attract new businesses today?

A: It’s remarkably familiar. Overton was doing exactly what cities still do today. He branded a place as the ideal spot for investment, prosperity and upward mobility. He pitched Memphis not just as a town, but as the only logical hub between Natchez and the mouth of the Ohio. He used natural beauty, health benefits, agricultural potential and access to trade routes as selling points. Today, city leaders tout broadband access, affordable housing, healthcare, schools and quality of life for the same reasons. Memphis in 1820 was marketed the same way modern cities bid for corporate headquarters or manufacturing plants. When John Overton wrote ad copy, he clearly understood he was selling a dream as much as a destination.

Q6: I know you were trying to get the biography out by 2026. What’s the significance of that year?

A: The release is timed to line up with several big anniversaries in 2026. May 28 will mark the 230th anniversary of Marcus Winchester’s birth, and June 1 is the 230th anniversary of Tennessee becoming the 16th state. Memphis was incorporated on Dec. 19, 1826, so the year marks 200 years since that significant milestone. It’s also the year America will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. With all that happening, it felt like the perfect time to reflect on how we got here. That’s what history does — it gives us context. We can look back at the choices people made, good and bad, and see how those decisions shaped our communities. Remembering our history doesn’t mean we’re stuck in the past. It means we’re learning from it, honoring the people who came before us and hopefully doing better moving forward. And sometimes, it’s just plain interesting.

Q7: Your depiction of the early European explorers who passed through Memphis and the later treatment of Native Americans and enslaved people is pretty blunt. Some readers may be surprised by the murder, disease and cruelty you included. Do you see this as part of a broader conversation we’re having today about how we tell America’s history?

A: Absolutely. We’re living through a moment when many are reexamining who gets remembered — and how. It’s important to acknowledge and document the treatment of Native and Black people, rather than ignore or erase the parts of history that make us uncomfortable. Genocide by disease, disrupted cultures, and slavery are all part of our shared past. In this book, I’ve shared the stories of early explorers and settlers — but also of some of the people they tried to erase or enslave. My goal was to honor the full picture, because you can’t build a truthful civic identity on half a story. In that way, this book is very much a part of the broader America 250 conversation and what it means to remember responsibly.

Q8: It seems you connect Marcus Winchester’s work as a champion of roads, ferry crossings, steamboats and the railroad to Memphis’s present-day identity as a logistics hub. Was that intentional?

A: Absolutely intentional. One of the things that struck me while researching was just how visionary Winchester was. He understood that infrastructure wasn’t just about commerce — it was about community-building and long-term sustainability by taking advantage of the location on the river. When I look at today’s Memphis, with its major role in the global supply chain, I see a direct line back to the ambitions Winchester had for the city in the 1820s and ’30s. It’s a reminder that the seeds we plant now, even in uncertain times, can shape generations to come.

Q9: You open the book with Marcus Winchester as a teenage prisoner of war. Why begin there, and how do you think that moment shaped who he would become?

A: Starting with that scene in Quebec — where Marcus, the son of an influential brigadier general, was both a prisoner of war and a bit of a public curiosity — felt like the right way to show how complex he was. At just 17, he was already navigating privilege, war and public perception. He wasn’t just some frontier kid. He was raised with the expectation that he would lead and carry on his family’s legacy. And yet, when he could have left the Fourth Chickasaw Bluff and settled in a more established city like Nashville, Baltimore or New Orleans, he stayed and helped build something new out of a muddy, disease-ridden river bluff.

Q10: Your book provides a lot of detail about the construction of the homes and estates of early Tennessee leaders like James Winchester, John Overton and Andrew Jackson. What do you think the places they lived reveal about their builders?

A: For those lucky few on the frontier with money and influence, a house wasn’t just a place to live — it was a statement. These men weren’t building for comfort alone. They were building economic and political legitimacy. Cragfont, The Hermitage and Travellers Rest all projected power, culture and permanence in a place that was still basically wilderness. They told visitors that their owners belonged not just in Tennessee, but on the national stage. What’s interesting is that all three homes are open to the public for tours and still stand today as monuments to the men who built them and the families and enslaved people who worked on them.

Q11: You highlight Marcus Winchester’s early education in Baltimore, where he was exposed to wealth, high society and commerce, and then contrast it with the roughness of frontier Memphis. How do you think that shaped his leadership style?

A: Marcus Winchester lived at the crossroads of refinement and roughness. During his early years in Baltimore, he no doubt learned how to network, navigate politics and speak the language of early bankers and businessmen like the uncle he lived with. He took that knowledge to the Mississippi River, where things were loud, muddy and lawless. That combination of sophistication and grit defined his leadership style. He could talk business with elites, but he could also sit down and negotiate with flatboat men and fur traders as one of them.

Q12: You included so many vivid descriptions of what it was like to travel to Memphis in those early wilderness years. Why was it important to detail how hard it was to even reach the city back then?

A: My own ancestors settled in Haywood County, Tennessee in the early 1830s after a difficult journey from Bertie County, North Carolina. I’ve always been curious about what they experienced. Whether you were traveling by flatboat, on foot or by stagecoach, the journey was punishing. That makes what Marcus Winchester and surveyor William Lawrence accomplished even more remarkable. They weren’t just sketching out lots — they were building order from wilderness. I think including those travel accounts, from actors on a keelboat to French aristocrats bouncing over tree stumps, gives readers a firsthand look at how isolated and dangerous West Tennessee really was at the time.

Q13: What race was Marcus Winchester’s wife, Amarante Loiselle?

A: I couldn’t find definitive proof of Amarante Loiselle’s exact racial background, but she was not considered White. Her mother, Victoire Loiselle, may have been mixed-race or a free Black woman. An 1806 burial record lists a child of Victoire’s as “free colored,” which suggests African ancestry. Amarante’s father or stepfather, Pierre Baribeau, was a fur trader and may have been Métis — a mix of French and Native American heritage common among traders in the Upper Mississippi and Missouri River regions. Amarante and her family were likely part of the French Creole community in early 19th-century St. Louis, which included people of mixed French, African and Native American ancestry.

Q14: As you explored what little information remains about Marcus Winchester’s marriage to Amarante, what stood out to you?

A: Their relationship was unusual not just because it crossed the color line. It was radical that Marcus publicly claimed her as his wife, despite Tennessee’s growing legal and social restrictions around race. Many men in the South lived with enslaved or free women of color, but formalizing that bond through marriage, as was possibly the case with the Winchesters, was extremely rare and, in fact, usually illegal. Marcus also deeded Amarante land, and for a time, the two were seen in Memphis as an influential couple who worked side by side for the good of their community.

Q15: You highlight how even free Black individuals like Marcus’s wife and children lived in fear of being “stolen in the night” and sold into slavery further south.

A: One of the most important takeaways is that freedom was never absolute. Marcus Winchester’s wife was legally free, educated and owned property, and their mixed-race children came from an influential family. But they were still vulnerable to laws and systems designed to strip them of dignity and safety. Marcus had to be diligent to keep his family safe. Their home was somewhere in what is now downtown Memphis and was said to be the nicest in town. After the passage of a city ordinance in 1837 that said no white man could “keep a colored wife,” Marcus moved his family to a cabin outside the city limits on property called Camp Muscogee, likely located in what is now Midtown, near Madison and Claybrook.

Q16: What did you learn about Marcus Winchester’s close friendships with Isaac Rawlings, David Crockett and Frances Wright?

A: As they say, “you are who you surround yourself with.” I felt like they each represented different sides of early American life — Rawlings stood for commerce, Crockett for politics and Wright for reform. Marcus was the thread that tied them all together. He wasn’t just a businessman or a politician or a public servant. He was all of those things. Even when John Overton warned him that a friendship with Crockett could risk angering Andrew Jackson, it’s likely Marcus secretly funded Crockett’s congressional campaigns. And when everyone else had turned their back on Frances Wright, he named a steamboat Nashoba in her honor.

Q17: Marcus’s second wife, Lucy McLean Winchester, emerges as a surprisingly bold and unconventional figure. What does her story reveal about the complexities of race, gender and religion in antebellum Memphis?

A: Lucy’s story pushes back against the simple narratives we often apply to White Southern women in the antebellum period. Because of her wealthy husband’s death, she had a little financial independence, youth and social status. Yet she chose to marry a much older man who had been publicly shamed for his relationship with a free woman of color and who had eight mixed-race children she had to raise. That decision alone was radical.

But then she went even further. At Camp Muscogee, she carved out space as a medium, spiritualist and public figure. At a time when white women were expected to stay quiet, pious and domestic, Lucy Winchester was literally claiming to channel voices from beyond the grave. Her role as a medium gave her a kind of authority and visibility that most women in the 19th century didn’t have access to. In a society that silenced women in the pulpit and in politics, the séance table became a space where women could lead. For Lucy — a white widow who had married into a mixed-race family and been ostracized by much of Memphis society — Spiritualism offered power, purpose and community.

Q18: It’s interesting that for more than 100 years, that was all that was known about the creation of Memphis’s first bank. You write about how an old pamphlet gathering dust on a library shelf was discovered by the late Memphis writer and historian James E. Roper. Why did you feel it was important to include an excerpt from that pamphlet in your book?

A: James Roper really was a superstar for us history nerds. For years, he was on the hunt for primary sources that could shed light on the history of our hometown. In the late 1950s, he made a fascinating discovery: sitting on a shelf at the Baker Library at Harvard Business School was “The Chronicles of the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank.” The pamphlet is the only known copy and had been donated to Harvard in 1873 by Shakespearean scholar Horace Howard Furness of Philadelphia. Written anonymously by someone using the pseudonym “Jesse, the Scribe,” it tells the story of the bank’s beginnings and Marcus Winchester’s role. What made it especially memorable was the writing style — it read like a mashup of Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, with Marcus and the early settlers of Memphis as the cast of characters. It was such a unique and entertaining piece of Memphis history, I felt like I couldn’t not share some of it with readers.

Q19: Marcus Winchester isn’t a household name. Why was it important for you to tell his story now, and what does it add to our understanding of American history — especially in the South?

A: Marcus Winchester is one of those figures who helped shape a city — and, in some ways, the trajectory of a region — but has been largely forgotten because his story doesn’t fit neatly into traditional narratives. He was a frontier businessman, a political leader and a bridge between worlds. He engaged with enslaved people, free people of color, Native Americans and powerful White elites. His life reflects the messiness of early America where identity, race and power were constantly being negotiated. Telling his story is a way to enrich our understanding of American history at a moment when we’re being asked to reckon with what kind of nation we’ve been — and what kind we want to become.

Q20: Last question: You end the book acknowledging Tennessee archivists, researchers, librarians, historians and writers who dedicate themselves to preserving the past. Why was that important to you?

A: I’ve spent the last three years digging through the work of historians, journalists, authors and others, much of it written by people who died long before I was born. None of that would exist without the librarians and archivists at places like the Memphis and Shelby County Room of the Memphis Public Library, the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Tennessee State Museum, the Shelby County Archives, the University of Memphis Library’s Special Collections and many others around the country. Some of the things I wish I knew about Marcus Winchester and Amarante Loiselle have been lost to history. But what I was able to find exists because people worked hard to preserve those stories for someone like me to discover.

Read or download press release.

Get an update when “Townmania” is available for purchase or when book talks are scheduled.