David Paton (architect)

David Paton (1801 – 1882) was a Scottish architect and builder, who temporarily worked in the United States in the 1830s and was important in his role of supervising the completion of the North Carolina State Capitol. He returned to the United States in 1849 to teach architecture and remained for the rest of his life.

He was born in Edinburgh the third child of twelve to John Paton, builder and Elenor Roper Paton. His father was the builder of much of Edinburgh’s Second New Town. He attended Edinburgh University before training as an architect and builder. In 1825 he appears to have travelled to Paris in France as several of his drawings from this period survive.

On 23 January 1829 he married Mary Nichol in Edinburgh. They had one daughter, Eleanor Murray Paton (1830-1902). However the marriage was short-lived as his wife died early in 1833.

In November 1829 he went to London where he worked in the offices of Sir John Soane for six months. When he returned his family lived at his father’s huge house within the central north “palace-block” pavilion, at 66 Great King Street, in Edinburgh’s Second New Town. This house was built by his father, who had constructed most of Great King Street, and this huge house was partly in lieu of payment.

In July 1833, following the death of his wife, he travelled to the United States, arriving, as was the norm, in New York City. It is likely that he left his young daughter at the family home with his parents.

On arrival in New York he sought employment, and found such in the offices of Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, jointly known as Town & Davis. Due to his great experience with the construction of fine-jointed, stone-built Neo-Classical buildings they readily employed him and sent him as overseeing job architect to their new commission on the construction of North Carolina State Capitol. Town and Davis had taken over this prestigious commission following their submission of plans to the state regarding the project. The project was already on site, following a design by William Nichols, but Town & Davis managed to usurp Nichols to obtain the commission. Paton reached Raleigh on 16 September 1834, to oversee the construction, at which stage the outer walls were virtually complete. Paton seemingly offended Town by making many alterations to the design without Town’s authority. Town & Davis officially withdrew from the project and in March 1835 the commissioners officially appointed Paton as the architect in his own, independent capacity. The project was truly massive, and Paton had control of up to 330 construction workers at any given time.

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