James Edward McCabe, 90, of Palm City, Fla. died May 25 at Treasure Coast Hospice in Stuart, Fla., following a lengthy illness.

His career spanned broad experience in government, business and education.

A 1939 graduate of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., he was captain of the baseball team, winner of The Bacon Trophy in football, elected to Phi Beta Kappa and secretary of his class. He went on to earn a master's degree from the Maxwell School of Government, Syracuse University, in 1941.

He also met a pretty student studying art at Syracuse named Elisabeth Rhoades, whom he would marry in 1943. She had spent every summer on the Vineyard since the age of 10 and he would quickly see the wisdom in that.

During World War II, they went to Washington, D.C. He served in the Defense Housing Agency and the War Production Board.

In 1945, he joined Merck & Company, and the family primarily lived in Short Hills, N.J., with summers on the Vineyard. Those years saw the addition of three more McCabes, Jean, Douglas and Bruce, and summer moves to and from Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury.

In his 26 years at Merck, he rose to be secretary of the company and director of research and development, then took early retirement.

However, a 15-year tenure as a trustee of Wesleyan University had turned his interests more to higher education than to business. In 1970, Mr. McCabe became vice president and treasurer of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and also led the search committee for a new president of his alma mater, Wesleyan University.

Mr. McCabe became instrumental in the installation of Colin Campbell, then 35, as president of Wesleyan. The placement of a young man coming from the American Stock Exchange to be vice president, then president, of Wesleyan may have seemed like a risk to some, but the combination led the school into a new era of prosperity.

Despite Mr. McCabe's active role in the Wesleyan restructuring - for which the University's Alumni Association honored him as a distinguished Wesleyan alumnus in 1974 - he was still active and effective in his new position in Saratoga Springs.

Working with his close friend and colleague, and Skidmore President Joseph C. Palamountain, Mr. McCabe conceived of moving the college's campus. He oversaw the sale of the original Skidmore campus and the acquisition of far more rural, spacious and even beautiful setting for the formerly all-women's college.That busy decade warranted Mr. McCabe's rare combination of quiet wisdom and solid judgment to also lead the search committee to fill the president's chair at Skidmore, in the wake of Mr. Palamountain's death. Mr. McCabe's choice, and that of Skidmore, was Dr. David Porter, coming from Carleton College in Minnesota.

As trustee emeritus of Skidmore, Mr. McCabe was further honored in 1991, when he received an honorary doctor of laws.

By the mid-1990s, his life was centered more on Florida and Saratoga Springs, with only visits to Martha's Vineyard. Then in his mid-80s, it became only visits to the Vineyard and Saratoga, with his life increasingly centered in Palm City, Fla.

He long had an interest in real estate. In later years, he maintained a real estate license both in Florida and New York. Along the way, he and his family logged more than 30 moves, a good half-dozen of which were on the Vineyard. He had been known to refer to this aspect of his life as "a moving experience."

Mr. McCabe was a member of the Saratoga Golf and Polo Club and a member of the Evergreen Golf Club of Palm City.

Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Elisabeth Rhoades McCabe; a daughter, Jean Ellis of Stuart, Fla. and Oak Bluffs; two sons, Douglas R. McCabe of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. and Bruce C. McCabe of Bountiful, Utah; a sister, Rita A. McCabe and a brother, Joseph H., both of West Hartford, Conn.; six grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that Mr. McCabe be remembered with donations to the Wesleyan University Scholarship Fund and or Church of the Advent, in Palm City, Fla., of which Mr. and Mrs. McCabe were founding parishioners.