During his tenure, the Cutlerites (as they had come to be called) relocated from Manti, Iowa to Clitherall, Minnesota in response to an alleged vision seen by Cutler prior to his death.

Accompanying his family and other Latter Day Saints to Caldwell County, Missouri in 1836, Whiting was expelled from the state with other Mormons in 1838, following the issuance of the so-called "Extermination Order" by governor Lilburn Boggs.

[3] Setting in Adams County, Illinois,[3] Whiting and his family initially followed the leadership of Brigham Young and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles after the murder of Joseph Smith in 1844.

He presided over the Cutlerites' move from Iowa to Clitherall, Minnesota, near Battle Lake, where they established the first permanent white settlement in Otter Tail County on 6 May 1865.

[6] With the Dakota War having ravaged the region only three years before, and being warned of possible trouble with the Native Americans remaining in the area, Whiting and other church leaders met with local chiefs and made a private treaty to preserve the peace, which neither side ever broke.