He was born in Albany, New York, the son of physician Jonathan Eights and Alida Wynkoop.
James also became a physician and was appointed an examiner at a local engineering school which is now known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Eights made observations of the flora and fauna in the lands reached by the expedition, which included Patagonia and Staten Island.
He was the first to describe a trilobite fossil found on the South Shetland Islands in the Antarctic, a pycnogonid, and the presence of glacial erratics.
[1] Upon his return, James Eights published some of his materials in journals, but failed to obtain any further positions on exploratory voyages.