Whiting's parents died while he was a child, and he was raised by father's sister Mary and her husband, Reverend Thomas Clap. Whiting would graduate from Yale in 1743 while his uncle Thomas was president of the university.Welles, Lemuel Aiken (1900). "Letters of Col. Nathan Whiting, Written from Camp During the French and Indian War". In Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. VI, p. 133. New Haven: New Haven Colony Historical Society.
