He attended the district school and Plainfield (Connecticut) Academy, but left when his mother died.

In 1821, when he was just twenty years old, Borden and several associates organized the Pocasset Manufacturing Company, in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Their eldest son, Simeon served as clerk of the courts of Bristol County, Massachusetts for thirty-two years.

Nathaniel Briggs Borden, Jr. would later follow his father's footsteps with a career business and banking, including the Valley Falls Company, run by his uncle Samuel B. Chace, and later the Barnard Mills in Fall River, which he helped organize.

Borden died in Fall River, Massachusetts, April 10, 1865, just a few days before his sixty-fourth birthday.

In 1867, the City of Fall River dedicated the N. B. Borden School on Morgan Street in his honor.

In 1876, the Academy of Music Building was dedicated in his honor by his widow Lydia, and his surviving adult children.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress