Learning from a Landmark at Menokin
Lesson Plans and Field Trip Information
2010 Calendar of Events- links to upcoming events, including Archaeological Field School (June 17-23, 2010)
Programs:
Architectural Conservation and Training
The Foundation believes that the hands-on preservation learning process is as important as the completion of conservation work at the Menokin ruins. We strive to conduct the most state-of-the-art, yet sensitive, historic preservation work on the property. Our vision includes becoming a teaching and learning center for innovative historic preservation practices by using the Menokin ruins and the surrounding historic landscape as a teaching laboratory.
Read more about the Foundation's plans for the conservation of MenokinHistory
The full story of Francis Lightfoot Lee, and the mark that he made on both the Commonwealth of Virginia and the developing United States of America has not been told. Bits and pieces come from many sources – his letters, letters about him, comments by friends and relatives, and the fact that he was a signer of both the Westmoreland Resolves (Feb. 27, 1766) and the Declaration of Independence (1776). Research concerning the life and work of Francis Lightfoot Lee is an ongoing project of the Menokin Foundation. Read more in this short history of Francis Lightfoot Lee.The Menokin Foundation conducts ongoing research on the skilled craftsman who constructed Menokin and their building techniques; the slaves, indentured servants and laborers who shaped and worked the Menokin plantation; and the Native Americans who lived on the land. Read more about Menokin's 18th century interior woodwork.
Watch a video to learn more about the history of Menokin and our educational programs
Environmental Conservation
The Menokin Foundation is also dedicated to the conservation of Menokin's natural resources through careful management of the woodland, fields, marshes and shoreline and the study of past and present flora and fauna. In 2005, 325 acres of our 500 acre property became part of the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Read more about our conservation easement to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.The National Audubon Society identified the Lower Rappahannock River, which includes the Menokin property, as an Important Bird Area. Read the ornithological summary of the Lower Rappahannock area.
On-Line Research Sources:
Historic American Buildings Survey documentation for Menokin, 1940, Library of Congress
Colonial Williamsburg's "Past Portal"
Virginia Heritage: Guides to Manuscript and Archival Collections in Virginia
Transcribed Primary Documents:
1743--Plantation at Menokin Inventory: Charles Grymes
1766--The Leedstown (or Westmoreland) Resolves1768 to 1796--Correspondence of Francis Lightfoot Lee
1778--John Tayloe II Deed of Gift for Menokin
1797--Obituaries of Francis Lightfoot Lee and Rebecca Tayloe Lee
1797--Will of Francis Lightfoot Lee
1797--Inventory of Menokin: Francis Lightfoot Lee's Estate
1808--Inventory of Menokin and Mt. Airy: John Tayloe III
Selected Articles and Books
Francis Lightfoot Lee, The Incomparable Signer. Alonzo Dill, The Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, Williamsburg, VA, 1977.
Irons in the Fire: The Business History of the Tayloe Family & Virginia's Gentry, 1700-1860, Laura Croghan Kamoie, University of Virginia Press, 2007.
Menokin: An Essay, Camille Wells, Menokin Afield, Winter, 1997
Menokin: Piece by Piece, Ed Chappell, Menokin Afield, Winter, 1997
A Tale of Two Houses, Camille Wells, Menokin Afield, January, 1999
Menokin: Prospect Orientation, Ed Chappell, Menokin Afield, January 1999
Under Their Own Vine, Camille Wells, Menokin Afield, 2002
Menokin: Virginia's Most Unusual Preservation Adventure, Calder Loth, Banner Lecture Presented at the Virginia Historical Society, Nov. 16, 2006. Reprinted in the Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine, Vol. LVII, Montross, Westmoreland County, Va., Dec. 2007.
The Business History of the Tayloe Family, Laura Croghan Kamoie, Menokin Afield, Summer 2008
2008 Archaeology Field Season (DATA Investigations), Menokin Afield, Winter 2009
2009 Archaeology Field Season (DATA Investigations); Research on Menokin's Slave Population (Ligon Brooks), Menokin Afield, Fall 2009
Menokin's Interior Woodwork Overview, web article, Sarah Pope, 2007
Saving the Past with Glass: The Menokin Glass Concept, web article, Sarah Pope, 2008
Menokin-Revolutionary Dowery, Andrew Packett, Northern Neck Electric Cooperatve Living Magazine, May 2010.
Other Resources
The Lees of Menokin (a biographical novel about Francis Lightfoot Lee and Rebecca Tayloe), Suzanne Hadfield Semsch, www.booksurge.com, 2009.