Samuel W. Vincent

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death September 27, 2004, of Samuel Warren Vincent of Falmouth after a brief illness. He was 76.

Sam Vincent was born November 29, 1927 in New Bedford and moved to Woods Hole when he was 3. He attended Woods Hole School and Lawrence High School, and was graduated from the Tilton School in New Hampshire in 1946.

Sam Vincent joined the Institution staff in November 1943 while a high school student, working as a lab assistant. He returned after high school for several months in 1947 as a seaman aboard WHOI vessels before leaving to work as a deckhand and later mate and captain on his father’s fishing vessel, Robert W. Griffin, Jr., from 1948 to 1957. He returned to WHOI for several months in 1957 as an able-bodied seaman aboard Crawford, returning to his father’s fishing vessel. In 1958 the boat was rammed by a British freighter south of Martha’s Vineyard; he was one of four survivors but his father, uncle and another crewman were lost.

After a brief period working in the supply department at the Marine Biological Laboratory, he accepted a position in 1959 at the University of Delaware as a captain and resident manager in the marine department. He returned to sea as a first mate for Daystrom Electric of Poughkeepsie, NY, in 1960 but soon returned to Falmouth. He rejoined the WHOI staff in December 1962 as a first mate aboard Gosnold, coming ashore several times to work as a research assistant in the Biology Department before leaving the Institution in 1966 to pursue a career in real estate.

Owner of Vincent Associates Real Estate in Falmouth for thirty years, Sam Vincent began his second career ashore in 1966 working with Thomson Real Estate. In 1969 he formed a partnership with Ruth Worthington to operate Worthington & Vincent Real Estate. Upon the 1979 retirement of Ruth Worthington the firm became Vincent Associates, and Sam Vincent remained active in the firm until recently.

Survivors include his wife, Beatrice (Sewall) Vincent, of Falmouth; two daughters, Shelley Vincent-Taylor of Gloucester, MA, and Nancy Vincent McDonald of Orange, CT; five grandchildren; three stepchildren, John Jackson of Groton, MA, Martha Jackson-Gegan of Davis, CA, and Ben Jackson of Brooklyn, NY; and six step-grandchildren.

A celebration of his life was held October 2, 2004 at the Woods Hole Ball Park on Bell Tower Lane.