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Authorities disagree as to whether Nathaniel was born there on October 16, 1733, or near Freehold, New Jersey, United States, on May 10.
At any rate, he was the eldest of the six children of Jacob and Abia (Rowe) Scudder who removed from Huntington and finally settled just southeast of Princeton, New Jersey, at a place later called Scudder's Mills. He was descended from Thomas Scudder who emigrated from Wiltshire, England, to Salem, Massachussets, about 1635.
Nathaniel Scudder was graduated from the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, with its fourth class in 1751. He then studied medicine.
Nathaniel had a large and apparently lucrative practice at Freehold, Manalapan, and other parts of Monmouth County, and he seems to have endeared himself to all. He was a trustee of Princeton from 1778 until his death.
As the Revolution approached, he played an active part in public affairs. He was a leader at the Freehold meeting on June 6, 1774, where he drafted resolutions of sympathy for Boston, and soon became a member of the local committee of public safety. He was a delegate to New Jersey's first provincial congress at New Brunswick that year and was speaker of the legislature in 1776.
A lieutenant-colonel of the 1th Monmouth County Regiment of militia, he succeeded George Taylor as colonel on November 28, 1776. Some of his property was destroyed during the British occupation at that time, the chief item in his bill of damages being a new colonel's uniform. In 1777 he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he first appeared on February 9, 1778, and served until just before his second term expired on December 1, 1779. He was frequently absent from the sessions of the Congress, as he was appointed on committees dealing with the quartermaster service, which required personal attention. He was present at the battle of Monmouth, near his own home, during a recess of the Congress.
His most important service was writing a letter from Freehold on July 13, 1778, two weeks after that battle, to John Hart, speaker of the New Jersey legislature, urging strongly that the state's delegates to Congress be empowered to ratify and sign the Articles of Confederation. His efforts were successful, for the necessary authorization was made on November 20, and the Articles were signed by Scudder and his colleagues on November 26.
After retiring from Congress, he resumed his military duties, assisting David Forman in repelling Loyalist raids. Three days before the Yorktown surrender, when some Loyalist refugees from Sandy Hook tried to land at Black Point, near Shrewsbury, New Jersey, he was killed.
Serving as a delegate for New Jersey to the Continental Congress, Nathaniel Scudder was one of two delegates from New Jersey to sign the Articles of Confederation. Parallely, he led his regiment in the Battle of Monmouth and was promoted to the rank of colonel. Scudder was the only member of the Continental Congress to die in battle during the Revolutionary War, and the last Colonel to die in battle.
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Scudder took a strong interest in religion, was an elder in the Tennent Church near Freehold, and is said to have worsted Thomas Paine in a religious controversy.
After a whirlwind romance Scudder married on March 23, 1752, Isabella, the daughter of the wealthy Kenneth Anderson of Monmouth County. They had three sons and two daughters.
