Dr. James Foster Scott was born on January 22, 1863, in Futtehghur, Uttar Pradesh, India.

He was a physician and author. He attended Hastings Academy, Philadelphia, and Yale College (B.A., 1884), where he was an athlete who rowed on the varsity team and developed his great love of rivers and boats. He received an M.B. and C.M. from Edinburgh University and later an M.D., completing his post-graduate work at Vienna. As a member of the Volunteer Medical Staff Corps of the British army, he spent three years in the British West Indies. In 1890, he became head of the Columbia Hospital in Washington, D.C., and was elected vice president of the Medical Society. He was considered one of the most brilliant young doctors. He wrote a medical book, still quoted by authorities (The Sexual Instinct: Its Use and Dangers as Affecting Heredity and Morals, 25 editions published between 1898 and 2018). At the height of this early success and amid a brilliant career and fashionable life in Washington D.C., Dr. Scott astonished his friends by giving it up and going to the wilds of the Yukon, after which he lived a retired life in the Virginia woods (near McLean) and spent time rowing the Potomac. He was sometimes called the "Hermit of Scott's Island," an island he bought along the Potomac, upon which he built a house. Dr. Scott wrote numerous volumes on philosophy with special emphasis on ethics and Christianity.

In 1940, he married Karen Mabel (Evans) Gram (1862–1942). He died on February 20, 1946, and is buried in Milford, Pike County, Pennsylvania.