Edward P. Hazelhurst was born on December 29, 1853, in Kentucky near the town of Brandenburg, in Meade County. His education was at the University of Pennsylvania where he attended only for a short time in 1876. His early training was probably with Benjamin D. Price firm and he appears to be strongly influenced by the architect  T.P. Chandler's work.  Like Price, Hazelhurst focused on domestic dwellings and churches in the Philadelphia area.  Mixed with this focus, are several commissions for buildings in educational institutions, some banks, and designs for civic buildings. The firm's work is recorded in Architecture Through a Camera and a smattering of other publications.

 

In 1881, when the firm was established, Hazelhurst apparently joined forces with Samuel J. Huckel, Jr., a native Philadelphian whose home was in the Frankford area of the city.  Huckel, like Hazelhurst was a partner in the earlier firm of Frank Furness, Huckel and Hazelhurst.  He was born in 1858 and died on April 18, 1917 in the city of his birth. Huckel's formal training is unclear, but he is recorded to be a graduate of Central high school in Philadelphia. Just what specific role Huckel played in the firm is also not determined by this author, but it appears that he was a full partner. Other authors have suggested that he was designated as the "church" architect and was responsible for most of the church designs in the firm. He evidently impressed his clients, as he was called on to remodel Grand Central Station in New York in 1900, the year he appears to have dissolved the partnership with Hazelhurst. When Huckel departed, Hazelhurst continued his practice alone.

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