Educator of the Deaf. Samuel Thomas Greene was born in Portland, Maine, on June 11, 1843. One of Greene's Hartford instructors was Laurent Clerc (1775-1869), then in the twilight years of a long career as a pioneer teacher of the deaf. His second Hartford teacher was Edward Miner Gallaudet (1837-1917) After a brief tenure at Hartford, Gallaudet moved to Washington, D.C., as founding superintendent of the new Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind (soon to be renamed the National College for the Deaf, later Gallaudet College, and today known as Gallaudet University). Greene followed Gallaudet to Washington about 1866 and enrolled in the National Colleges new university-level program. He was a member of the colleges second graduation class, earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1870.
Samuel Greene at the age of 25, moved to Belleville, Ontario, to join the teaching staff of the new Ontario Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (now called the Sir James Whitney School For the Deaf). He was the only deaf instructor among the schools inaugural four-person staff.

In early February 1890, Samuel Thomas Greene was seriously injured in an ice-boating accident on the Bay of Quinte. Greene lived for about two weeks without regaining consciousness, then died in the early hours of February 17, 1890 at the age of 47.
Samuel Thomas Greene was survived by his wife, the former Caroline Wallbridge, granddaughter of a pioneer Belleville family, and by four children. He was buried in Belleville Cemetery, where deaf and hearing friends later erected a tombstone featuring his surname in "fingerspelling" as a tribute to his inspired work as a teacher of the deaf. There is a street in Belleville's west end named Greene Street in his honor.