Lawrence Norris Scammon, designer, printmaker and teacher, was born in San Francisco, California on August 26, 1870. His parents were Susan Crowell Norris and Charles Melville Scammon. Charles Scammon was a sea captain who sailed around the Horn to California in the 1850s. He was commissioned by President Lincoln in the U. S. Revenue Cutter Service and was recognized as an authority on whales. Scammon Bay in Alaska is named in his honor.

Lawrence Scammon studied at the University of California at Berkeley and the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco. He taught briefly at the University of California after his graduation. He lived most of his life in the Oakland hills on Buena Vista Avenue. Scammon was a member of and exhibited with the San Francisco Art Association, and he showed with the California Society of Etchers as early at 1918 and the following year he served on the society's exhibition committee. Scammon worked as a designer for the Roberts Manufacturing Company in San Francisco and conducted private art lessons in his studio.

In 1926, Grabhorn Press published a portfolio of etchings by Scammon entitled Spanish Missions California. This portfolio included ten etchings depicting the first ten missions constructed in California. Scammon work in printmaking included drypoint, etching and lithography. Scammon's work is represented in the collections of the Crocker Art Museum, Mills College Art Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Society of California Pioneers.

According to the California Death Index, Lawrence Norris Scammon died in Alameda, California on October 12, 1949.