Born in Bowling Green, Kentucky on November 21, 1850. Nathaniel Bloomfield was educated at Washington University, in St. Louis.
In May of 1870 he accompanied his parents to Washington Territory, and by 1871 he had begun studing law. Bloomfield was admitted to the bar in 1873 and began his practice in Kalama.
In 1874 Nathaniel Bloomfield was the Republican nominee for district attorney of the Second Judicial district of Washington Territory; he lost the election by 137 votes. In 1876 he defeated Democratic opponent Judge Columbia Lancaster, who was a welll known Vancouver attorney.
In 1882 Bloomfield resumed the practice of law in Vancouver, and when Washington became a state in 1889, he was the first judge elected to the superior court for Clarke County, containing Pacific, Wahikiakum, Cowlitz, Clarke and Skamania Counties. He defeated Democratic opponent J.A. Munday and former Chief Justice B.F. Dennison of the Independent party. The Vancouver Independent newspaper of October 30, 1889, showed Bloomfield receiving 2,366 votes to Munday’s 1,452, and Dennison with 240. After one term on the bench, Judge Bloomfield returned to private practice.
During Judge Bloomfield’s career the Clark county courthouse burned to the ground on February 24, 1890. All the court records and land ownership records were lost, resulting in litigation over titles to real estate which lasted for years.
Judge Bloomfield died on September 7, 1922.