Nathan Whiting papers

NATHAN WHITING, 1724-1771

Nathan Whiting, the youngest of thirteen children of the Rev. Samuel and Elizabeth (Adams) Whiting of Windham, Connecticut, was born in that town, May 4, 1724, being a brother of Colonel. John Whiting (Y. C 1726) His father died when this son was 16 months old, and when he was in his 14th Year, his mother married the Rev. Samuel Niles (Harv. 1699), of Braintree, Massachusetts. Nathan Whiting was mainly brought up by his sister Mary, and her husband, Rector Clap.

He studied at the College for two years after graduation, and then settled in New Haven as a merchant, but accompanied as Ensign the Connecticut troops in the expedition against Louisburg in 1745; in this service he so distinguished himself, that at the end of the campaign, a lieutenancy in the British army was given him by Sir William Pepperrell. A little later he was in business-partnership with Thomas Darling (Y. C 1740). While in this employment the French war began, in 1755; and he was appointed, in March of that year, Lieutenant Colonel of the 2d Connecticut Regiment. He assisted in garrisoning Fort Edward; and on September 8, was with Colonel Ephraim Williams in the detachment sent against Baron Dieskau. On the fall of Williams, the command devolved on Lieutenant Colonel Whiting, who conducted the retreat of the corps with a skill and coolness which did him high credit. When the next expedition was sent out in 1756, he was promoted to a Colonelcy. He continued in the service throughout the war, and was esteemed by both British and Americans an officer of uncommon merit.

In 1769 and 1770 he was a representative of New Haven in the General Assembly; and at the time of his death he was in nomination for the Upper House.

He died in New Haven, April 9, 1771, at the age of 47. His estate was inventoried at £1322.

He married, July 12, 1750, Mary, daughter of Captain Rosewell and Mary (Haynes) Saltonstall, of Branford, her mother having married Rector Clap in 1741. Of their five sons and four daughters, three sons and one daughter survived infancy; the eldest of these children was graduated here in 1777. The widow of Colonel Whiting next married the Rev. Warham Williams (Y. C. 1745), of Northford Parish, in North Branford, Connecticut, whom she survived.

President Dwight thus describes Colonel Whiting: "He was an exemplary professor of the Christian religion; and for refined and dignified manners, and nobleness of mind, has rarely been excelled." His portrait is in the rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society, at Hartford.

AUTHORITIES.

Conn. Journal, Apr. 19, 1771 Dwight, "Statistical Account of New Haven", 75. Goodwin, Genealogical Notes, 333, 336-337. Kingsley, Hist. Discourse at New Haven, 68. Larned, Hist of Windham County, i, 564. N. H. Col. Hist. Soc. Papers, iii, 608. Pease and Niles, Gazetteer of Conn. and R. I., 206.

Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 1701-1745 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1885), pp. 750-751.