BROOKSVILLE – Joel Putnam Davis of Brooksville, Maine, died on June 9, 2016. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 19, 1926, the third son of Rhea Reineman Davis and Edward Kirk Davis.
His informal education consisted of learning to fish and sail. He received his formal education at Milton Academy and Harvard College where he met his future wife, Ruth Hiebert whom he married in 1950. Together they raised four children in Osterville on Cape Cod. By this time he had graduated from catching scup and sea robins to bluefish and striped bass. It was on Cuttyhunk Island where he discovered stripers abounded, and Cuttyhunk became the family’s summer home.
Joel took over the late nineteenth-century corporation, Seapuit Inc. which had built one of the earliest nine-hole golf courses in the country. He turned it into a premier land management and property development company.
Public service was important to Joel. He was an Emeritus Trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, as well as a Life Trustee of Cape Cod Academy and he also served on the Board of the Marine Biological Laboratory. For fifty years he was a Trustee of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
In 1992, when Joel and Ruth moved to Horseshoe Cove in Brooksville, Maine, he was able to indulge in his love of sailing. Cruising the many small harbors and islands along the Maine coast, learning that humpback whales come to the surface when you play a recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, discovering new places, and even a few rocks made his summers a delight.
Besides his wife, Ruth, he is survived by his children: Serena Davis Hall, her husband Brent and their daughters, Molly and Sarah Hall; Jonathan Davis, his wife Louise and his children Justin, Hannah and Caleb, and her children Caitlin and Samantha Forrest; Christopher Davis, his wife Janet McMahon and their daughters Josie and Sophie Davis; and Margaret Maiden, her husband Miles and their daughters Haley and Hannah Maiden. Karen Brown Davis, mother of Justin, Hannah and Caleb, died in 2010.
He leaves his older brother Holbrook R. Davis of Osterville, Massachusetts and numerous nieces and nephews.
In lieu of flowers please consider a gift to either the Brooksville Free Public Library or the Blue Hill Public Library.
A celebration of his life will be announced.