He could trace his ancestry to William Claiborne (1600–1677), a merchant who emigrated to the Virginia Colony from Kent, England, and became active politically and militarily in the Chesapeake Bay region.

His elder brother William Charles Cole Claiborne would also become politically active, including as Governor of Louisiana, Tennessee congressman and U.S.

[5] The family included elder brothers Ferdinand Leigh Claiborne who married Mary Magdalene Hutchins, William C.C.

[6] Like his brothers, Nathaniel received a private classical education at a local academy appropriate to his class, and also read law.

In 1801 Claiborne moved to Franklin County and soon won election as the Commonwealth's attorney (prosecutor), and would win re-election several times before resigning in 1810 to become a part-time member of the Virginia House of Delegates, as described below, as well as maintain his own private legal practice.

[8] Between 1802 and 1806, Claiborne purchased about 800 acres of land in Franklin County north of the Blackwater River, and established a plantation he called "Claybrook".

[12][13] Franklin County voters in 1809 first elected Claiborne as one of their representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates, and he won re-election until 1812.

Claiborne also wrote several articles about the conflict, which he consolidated in 1819 and republished as Notes on the War in the South; with Biographical Sketches of the Lives of Montgomery, Jackson, Sevier, the Late Gov.

His elder brother, Ferdiannd Leigh Claiborne (1817-1862), was born in Richmond, became a tobacco merchant and married into the Taliaferro family, and died in Baltimore during the Civil War.