- April 18, 2024
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Jesse McKnight, president of Flagler County Abstract Company, took the company over for family 40 years ago. Photos by Colleen Michele Jones
Jesse McKnight, in front of a painting of himself, shows off some of the paper ledgers the company has in its possession.
Established in 1917, the Flagler County Abstract Company has roots dating as far back as the county itself.
The firm, founded by an assemblage of the area's earliest developers, celebrates its 100-year anniversary this year, coinciding with the official incorporation of Flagler County.
Jesse McKnight, the current president of Flagler County Abstract Company, explains that while local landholders at the turn of the last century, including Isaac Moody and Bert Fish, initially founded the company, his uncle Claude Varn took it over soon after, running the operation with partner Rudolph Peterson.
As the county itself expanded, so too did the need for the services the business offered, primarily certifying the transfer of property deeds from sellers to buyers, as well as tracing the rightful ownership of parcels in question.
In one case, which McKnight recalls occurred in the late 1970s or early 1980s, Flagler Abstract had to follow a paper trail going back as far as a land grant from Florida's early days of Spanish occupation in order to settle a case that paved the way for the Fairways Condominiums to be built in Palm Coast.
"We had to find out who the King of Spain divested the land to," said Genette McKnight, Jesse's wife who also serves as vice president of the company.
History also came into play when the company had to prove ownership of a parcel of land that ended up extending Washington Oaks State Park by 10 acres decades ago.
In other cases, Genette McKnight recalls, old land deals between farmers in rural Bunnell were brought into question.
"There were a lot of handshakes between family members, so in those cases we've had to establish these titles because handshakes don't always work in conveyance," she said.
For nearly a century, the company has continuously been family-run and operated, with the McKnights, who live in Flagler Beach, taking over in the mid-1970s. Jesse McKnight was also part of a core group of local residents that formed in order to protect what he calls "spot zoning" as the area began to develop rapidly over the last several decades.
Throughout its history, the company has also had to bridge the gap between paper ledgers to microfiche files to digital files, the latter which the McKnights attribute to the help of their daughter, Isadora, a managing partner in the firm and her husband, Jon, whom they hope will take over the business and continue it into longevity.
Though the company was first headquartered north of SR 100, it has been at its current location at 306 E. Moody Blvd. in Bunnell since 1967. It is not to be confused with the Flagler Insurance Company, which was established in 1965 with similar ownership but which it severed ties from in 1973. Flagler Abstract currently has two other satellite locations, one in Flagler Beach and the other in Palm Coast.
