Author
Centurion, 1898–1918
Born 20 April 1848 in New York (Manhattan), New York
Died 11 December 1918 in New York (Manhattan), New York
Buried Green-Wood Cemetery
, Brooklyn, New York
Proposed by William Crary Brownell and John T. Agnew
Elected 5 March 1898 at age forty-nine
Archivist’s Note: Nephew of Cornelius R. Agnew and John T. Agnew; brother of David Paton and Stewart Paton; uncle of Richard Townley Paton
Century Memorial
William Agnew Paton belonged to that brilliant school of New York journalism which flourished when Dana was doing his best writing on the Sun, Godkin on the Nation, and Hurlburt on the World. Officially publisher of the World in the late seventies, Paton was in reality associate editor, leaving the impress of his individuality on the columns of literary and artistic criticism, even more than on the counting-room. To literature, especially of travel and descriptive research, he applied his own hand in his Picturesque Sicily, The First Landfall of Columbus, and his Voyage to the Caribbees; while his own love for the things of art brought him into familiar personal association with Chase, Millet, Stanford White, Hopkinson Smith, and the other genial artists of the old Tile Club membership.
Although not a graduate of any college, Paton’s reading and reflection made him a man of learning as well as wit, and he was welcomed into the intimate society of the several capitals of Europe which he loved to visit; but his foreign affiliations never shook his devotion of the United States and his belief in its future. Indeed, he knew his country as few other men of letters did, through personal acquaintance with men in all walks of life, East and West— an acquaintance which enriched his fund of entertaining anecdote. The social and professional life of New York City was still better known to him; he was in it and of it for half a century.
Alexander Dana Noyes
1919 Century Association Yearbook