Newbold Hough Trotter was born in Philadelphia, where he spent most of his life. After attending Haverford College from about 1841 to 1845, he worked for the wholesale drygoods firm of Wood, Abbott and Company and was then a partner in the machinist company Birkinbine, Martin, and Trotter. He began to pursue his interest in art while still involved in business and may have attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1854. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1858. During the Civil War, Trotter joined the Germantown Home Guards in 1861 and fought at the Battle of Antietam. After the war, he and his brother-in-law started a hardware business, which closed in 1867, leaving Trotter free to paint full-time. Trotter painted mainly landscapes and animal subjects. His painting Wounded Buffaloes Pursued by Prairie Wolves was shown at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 and was purchased by General William Tecumseh Sherman for Army headquarters in Washington, D.C. Trotter subsequently executed three commissions for the War Department and a portrait of General Sherman on horseback. His interest in natural history led to a commission to illustrate Hayden's Journal of the Mammals of North America, for which he completed thirty paintings before the project was cancelled because of lack of funds. He exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy between 1858 and 1887, the National Academy of Design in New York between 1871 and 1886, and the Boston Athenaeum between 1859 and 1867. He was also a member of the Art Club of Philadelphia, vice-president of the Artists' Fund Society of Philadelphia, and a director and secretary of the Philadelphia Society of Artists.