Jesse Knight fostered education and religion from the time he and his family settled in the wilderness of the area that is now Nokomis, in 1868. The family held a Christmas Eve service in their newly built double-pen log house. It had taken them two months to build the two log cabins connected by a breezeway. They continued to hold church services in their home, outdoors under an arbor, and in the homes of other settlers.
The fifteen children of Jesse and Caroline Rebecca Varn Knight all grew to adulthood. The Knights hired a succession of teachers, who lived with the family, to educate their children until other families moved into the area. One teacher was paid ten dollars a month.
About a decade after their arrival in the area, Knight donated land for a school, bought the lumber, and helped with its construction. On Sundays the building was used as a church. When a larger school was needed, in 1896 he donated land to the Manatee County Board of Public Instruction.
In 1893, Knight deeded land for a church to be used by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, with an additional acre for an adjacent cemetery.
Knight built a three-mile split rail fence from Shakett Creek east to the Myakka River, thus enclosing 150 square miles of land on a peninsula bounded by Shakett Creek, Dona Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, Lemon Bay, the Myakka River, Charlotte Harbor, and the fence. He owned a small part of the land, but his cattle (as many as 22,000 head) roamed the open range.
Jesse Knight was ninety-four when he died. He had contributed to the cattle industry, started the first area church, provided for the school, and left a large, active family to his community.