Franklin Pierce Lamson was born April 19, 1851 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. His parents Joseph Sanborn and Eunice Ellen (Winslow) Lamson died when he was 3 years old and he was adopted by the Virgil Scribner family near Manchester, Maine. He received preparatory education at Hebron Academy, Kents Hill School, and Coburn Classical Institute and graduated from Maine State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1873.