Irving was born on September 12, 1845 in Rushville, Ontario County, New York, United States, the son of George Washington and Miranda (Tufts) Stearns. He was a descendant of Charles Stearns, an Englishman, who was admitted a freeman at Watertown, Massachussets, May 6, 1646.
His father, a farmer and county judge, moved to Michigan in 1867 and subsequently became editor of the Coldwater Semi-Weekly Republican.
Stearns was educated at Rushville Academy, Benedict's Collegiate Institute, Rochester, New York, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, where he was graduated in 1868.
Stearns remained at the Institute for one year as assistant in analytical chemistry, then spent two years in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, as engineer in the office of Richard P. Rothwell.
In 1871 he became superintendent of the McNeal Coal & Iron Company of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and the following year, when Rothwell moved to New York, succeeded to the latter's business. As consulting engineer he examined and reported on mining properties in Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Arkansas, Colorado, California, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah.
He was in charge of designing and carrying out for the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company improvements at Buffalo, New York, including canals, docks, and coal-stocking plant. His prominence as a mining engineer brought him appointment in 1885 as manager of the coal interests of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
He managed these properties with great efficiency, installing at Shamokin the first high-pressure boilers in the anthracite region; introducing electricity for underground haulage at the Lykens Valley colliery in 1886 - its first use for such a purpose in the United States; and introducing high pressure compressed air for haulage in 1895.
He also made radical improvements in the processes of mining and preparing anthracite coal. He retained the managership of the Pennsylvania's coal properties until July 1897, when he was chosen president of the Cross Creek Coal Company, of Coxe Brothers & Company, Inc. , of the Delaware, Susquehanna & Schuylkill Railroad Company, and of Coxe Iron Manufacturing Company.
He headed these organizations until the Coxe properties were bought in 1905 by the Lehigh Valley Coal Company, of which he became a director. Retiring at this time from active business, he accepted in November 1906 election as first president of the Wilkes-Barre Park Commission, throwing himself enthusiastically into its work and during his ten years' incumbency securing almost the entire park system through gifts to the city.
His death occurred at Wilkes-Barre in his seventy-sixth year.
Irving Ariel Stearns was one of the organizers of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and retained his membership until the end of his life. He was also a head of the Cross Creek Coal Company, of Coxe Brothers & Company, Inc. , of the Delaware, Susquehanna & Schuylkill Railroad Company, and of Coxe Iron Manufacturing Company.
At Wilkes-Barre, November 20, 1872, he married Clorinda Shoemaker, daughter of Lazarus Denison and Esther (Wadhams) Shoemaker. He had two sons and one daughter, but only the latter survived him.
