Mearns was born in Highland Falls, New York, to Alexander and Nancy Reliance Mearns (née Clarswell). His grandfather Alexander was of Scottish origin and moved to Highland Falls in 1815. Edgar Mearns was educated at the Donald Highland Institute (Highland Falls). He attended the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating in 1881.[1]
In 1881, he married Ella Wittich of Circleville, Ohio. The couple had one son and one daughter. Their son was born in 1886 and died in 1912.
Mearns became a doctor in the U.S. Army. From 1882 to 1899 he served the military as a surgeon. From 1899 to 1903, he was a medical officer in several army institutions. From 1903 to 1904 and from 1905 to 1907, he traveled to the Philippines; he had to interrupt his journey in 1904 because he came down with a parasitic disease. In 1905 a trip led him to Guam.[2] As major and surgeon in the army, Mearns was appointed medical officer to the International Boundary Commission; he reported on the fauna and trees of the boundary between Mexico and the United States in his 1907 Mammals of the Mexican Boundary of the United States.[3] In 1909 he retired from the army with a rank of a lieutenant colonel.
^"The Childs Frick Expedition". Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution: 122. 1912. Retrieved 21 June 2013.
^Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ("Mearns", p. 174).
