The Hart Island Project

Vincent Irving Whitman was born in Lyons, New York on the 10th of March 1892. Lyons is a hamlet located on the Erie Canal and situated approximately midway between Syracuse and Rochester.

Vincent's father, Irving Ambrose Whitman worked as an attorney with U.S. Pension and was a self-proclaimed Inventor and Motion Picture Promoter. His mother, Mary Ellen Flavhan Whitman, was the daughter of Irish immigrants who had settled in Lyons. Vincent had two siblings: Stewart Columbus Whitman, born in 1890, and Bernard Columbus Whitman, born in 1893. Sadly, Mary Ellen died in 1907 when Vincent was just 14 years old. She is buried in Lyons Rural Cemetery.

In 1917, when Vincent registered the the draft of WWI, he was living in Manhattan and working in New Jersey for the Universal Film Corporation (possibly as a cartoonist.) He was also married and the father of a child.

The 1930 U.S. Census records that Vincent has divorced and is living at the Hotel St. Andrew, on the corner of Broadway and 72nd Street, with his father and younger brother, Bernard. Each man reports that he works independently as an "inventor."

Ten years later, Vincent and Bernard are still living together according to the 1940 U.S. Census. Both working as "inventors in the patent business."

Vincent registered for the draft of WWII in 1942. He is 50 years old and still self employed as a patent developer. He is described as being 5 feet 11 inches tall, with blue eyes, brown hair and a light complexion.

Vincent Irving Whitman died on the 31st of March 1973 and was buried on Hart Island on the 22nd of September 1980.

Vincent Whitman

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