He graduated from Waterbury High School in 1870 and prepared for college at the Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

As a post-graduate, he served as an assistant in zoology to Professor Addison Emery Verrill at Yale for two years.

[2] Patton worked as a special agent at the United States Entomological Commission at Washington, D. C. from 1879 to 1881.

Patton escaped the asylum in 1882 and showed up in Washington where Dr. Riley tried to give him a job at the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

[3] Upon the establishment of the State Entomologist office in 1901, Patton wrote a series of letters to its new officeholder, W. E. Britton.