Nathaniel R. Mitchell was the grandson of William M. Mitchell of Virginia and the son of Thomas D. Mitchell (d. 1826), one of the earliest citizens of Thomas County, Georgia. Nathaniel married Temperance Jordan (1792-1843) in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, on October 8 1806, when they were both in their teens. They had nine children. By the 1830's they were living in Thomas County where Mr. Mitchell raised cotton, tobacco, and probably sheep on their plantation, Mount Pleasant. After Temperance Mitchell's death in 1843, he married a widow, Lucy A. Hill, in November 1844.