Rev. Nathan Scarritt (1821 — May 22, 1890) was an American educator, pastor, and real estate dealer.

Scarritt was born in 1821 in Edwardsville, Illinois, the seventh of twelve children. His parents, Nathan and Latty, traveled from New Hampshire on wagon. As a child, he worked on a farm in Alton, Illinois, and didn't receive a proper education.^[1]

Scarritt attended McKendree College, having to work as a cleaner for the school to pay for tuition. During his third year of college, his father became ill and he left school to care for him. The school paid for his final year, and he graduated in 1842 as valedictorian.^[1]

To pay off student debts, Scarritt worked briefly as a schoolteacher in Waterloo, Illinois until 1845, when he moved to Fayette, Missouri.^[2] There, he worked as a teacher and helped establish Howard Female College. For his efforts, the University of Missouri awarded him an honorary Master of Arts.^[3]

Scarritt converted to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South demomination of Christianity in 1848, and began working at the Shawnee Methodist Mission. In 1850, he married Martha Matilda Chick, daughter of William Miles Chick. He left the Methodist Mission in 1852, and was later appointed by a bishop as an elder of the Kickapoo people. He also worked as a traveling minister for the Delaware, Shawnee and Wyandot tribes^[4]—with translations done by Silas Armstrong.^[5]

Scarritt died on May 22, 1890. His son William Chick Scarritt was a prominent lawyer and owner of the William Chick Scarritt House.^[6] William Chick Scarritt's daughter, and Nathan Scarritt's granddaughter was Dorothy McKibbin, a manager of the Manhattan Project.^[7]

In the 1850s, Scarritt moved to Kansas City, Missouri and bought land from Lieutenant Joseph Boggs and between 1847 and 1853, built an L-shaped two-story house for $2150. He lived in that house until 1862.^[8] The house is approximately 2,000 square feet, and is constructed of a limestone foundation, and a juglan clapboard painted olive-tan.^[9]