John Wright Paton was born in 1825 at Kennetpans on the banks of the river Forth.
By 1851 he had been appointed as Head Gardener at Crimonmogate, Aberdeenshire:
It is not clear when John Paton traveled south. At some point after Crimongate he was appointed as Head gardener at Saughton Hall, Edinburgh:
At a date unknown, John Paton moved to Shotley Bridge, in England.
John Wright Paton, born at Kennetpans, Scotland in 1825, died in Shotley in the summer of 1897. A gardener of the ‘old school’ he had by this date become a familiar journalist: