Nathan Snow Kemp was born on January 20, 1816, in Pomfret, Vermont, to Nehemiah and Betsey Kemp. His father was a farmer. Kemp grew up in Pomfret, and he moved to Natick, Massachusetts, in the 1840s. He married Martha Felch on November 6, 1844, but she probably died in the 1840s.
By 1850, Kemp was working as a shoemaker in Natick, and he owned $500 of real estate. He married Lucinda Butterfield on January 9, 1851, and their daughter Elizabeth was born on March 30, 1855. They moved to Weston, Massachusetts, in the 1850s, and by 1860, they owned $150 of personal property.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 2, 1864, and he mustered in as a private in Company I of the 39th Massachusetts Infantry later that day. He may have lied about his age, as his enlistment records list him as 40 years old. He was 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with black hair and hazel eyes. The regiment took part in the siege of Petersburg, and Confederate forces captured him on December 10, 1864. He spent the next few months imprisoned in Richmond, Virginia.
By February 1865, he was suffering from “chronic diarrhea.” Confederates granted him a parole that winter, and he returned home to recover his health. He died in Watertown, Massachusetts, on May 19, 1865.