Background
Reason was born in 1816 in New York City as one of four children. His father, Michel Rison, was native to Saint Anne Island, Guadeloupe and his mother, Elizabeth Melville, was native to Saint-Domingue.
Reason was born in 1816 in New York City as one of four children. His father, Michel Rison, was native to Saint Anne Island, Guadeloupe and his mother, Elizabeth Melville, was native to Saint-Domingue.
With his two brothers Elver and Charles L. Reason, Patrick attended New York"s African Free School.
He was a leader in a fraternal order, gaining recognition for Hamilton Lodge Number. 710, New York, as part of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America. He was baptized Patrice Rison in April 1816.
At the age of 13, his drawing of the school building was engraved for the frontispiece of Charles C. Andrews"s history of the school published in 1830.
He was apprenticed to Stephen Henry Gimber(1806-1862), an English engraver and lithographer in the city. Reason set up his own shop, engraving portraits and other images for anti-slavery and other books and journals, as well as for individuals.
His engravings include an 1835 version of the kneeling female slave, an 1840 portrait of Ohio Senator Benjamin Tappan, and the frontispiece portrait for the 1849 autobiography of Henry Bibb, a fugitive from slavery and an abolitionist lecturer. An 1840 lithograph portrait of Bibb has also been attributed to Reason.
646 (which in turn instituted Hamilton Lodge Number 710), New New York
Reason designed the membership certificate, at one point served as the lodge"s grand master, and in 1858 composed the Ruth degree, the first to be conferred upon female members. In 1869, Reason moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, and joined the firm of Sylvester Hogan, where he did jewelry and plate engraving until his death in 1898.
As a member of the New York Philomathean Society, Reason and others petitioned but were refused inclusion in an American fraternal organization, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.