For a time he acted as an army surgeon, but in 1816 took a practice at Long Buckley, Northamptonshire.
A small estate was bequeathed to him in 1858 at Ledwell, a hamlet of the parish of Sandford St. Martin, seventeen miles from Oxford.
There he died, at his residence, Ledwell House, after a very short illness, on 12 March 1860, and was buried in the churchyard at Sandford.
Paxton was a man of strong religious feelings, and was highly esteemed by his friends and patients.
He contributed ‘A Case of Scirrhous Pylorus and Mortification of the Stomach’ to the ‘Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,’ xv.
328, and edited Paley's ‘Natural Theology,’ with ‘a series of plates and explanatory notes,’ Oxford, 1826, 8vo, 2 vols.