Touring the Menokin Ruin
Fingertips retracing centuries-old fingerprints of the Ancestors in the brick at the Menokin Ruin
Alice French, Menokin’s Director of Education and Programming, led tours of the Menokin ruin for attendees of Menokin’s First Descendants’ Day. The Menokin ruin is the former home of Frances Lightfoot Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and his wife, Rebecca Lee, as well as other various owners until the home went into decline in the 1950’s. The ruin is undergoing a unique restoration that stabilizes what remains of the original structure, and replaces the missing sections with steel, and large panels and floors of made from glass.
Fingerprints of the Ancestors who labored in bondage building the home and working on the plantation are retraced by their descendants inside the ruin. The full image of the stone walls displays recent restoration in October, 2022.
Photographs by Michael Beller, Reginald A. Pearman Jr., and Attendees.
