Appleton (Nathan) is born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire.

The son of Isaac and Mary (Adams) Appleton, Nathan Appleton and comes to Boston in 1794 to join his older brother Samuel Appleton and works first in a retail store in Cornhill. The two go on to establish a successful import-export business. Appleton tours the textile mills in England and Scotland, where he meets Francis Cabot Lowell in 1811, and becomes one of his partners in 1814* and 1821.* He is first elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1814 and to Congress in in 1830. Appleton dies in Boston on July 14, 1861.