George F. Huff Explained

George F. Huff
Image Name:George Franklin Huff.jpg
State1:Pennsylvania
Constituency1:22nd district
Term Start1:March 4, 1903
Term End1:March 3, 1911
Preceded1:John Dalzell
Succeeded1:Curtis H. Gregg
Constituency2:at-large
Term Start2:March 4, 1895
Term End2:March 3, 1897
Preceded2:See below
Succeeded2:See below
Constituency3:21st district
Term Start3:March 4, 1891
Term End3:March 3, 1893
Preceded3:Samuel Alfred Craig
Succeeded3:Daniel B. Heiner
Office4:Member of the Pennsylvania State Senate
Term4:1884–1888
Birth Date:16 July 1842
Birth Place:Norristown, Pennsylvania
Death Place:Washington, D.C.
Spouse:Henrietta Burrell (m. 1871)
Party:Republican

George Franklin Huff (July 16, 1842 – April 18, 1912) was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.

Biography

George F. Huff was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He attended the public schools in Middletown, Pennsylvania,[1] and later in Altoona, Pennsylvania. At the age of eighteen he worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad car shops in Altoona.

He moved to Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 1867 and engaged in banking in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. He later became largely identified with the industrial and mining interests of western Pennsylvania. He was a delegate to the 1880 Republican National Convention. He was a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate from 1884 to 1888.

Huff was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-second Congress. He was again elected to the Fifty-fourth Congress. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1896.

Huff was again elected to the Fifty-eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses. He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Mines and Mining during the Sixtieth and Sixty-first Congresses. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1910.

Personal life

On March 16, 1871, Huff married the former Henrietta Burrell, a daughter of Jeremiah M. Burrell, President Judge of the Tenth Judicial District of Pennsylvania. They were the parents of eight children.

Along with sixty-odd wealthy Western Pennsylvanians including Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon and Henry Clay Frick, Huff was a member of the elite South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club whose earthen dam at Lake Conemaugh failed on May 31, 1889, causing the Johnstown Flood.

He died in Washington, D.C., in 1912, aged 69. He was interred in St. Clair Cemetery in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Huff's Dupont Circle mansion, designed by Horace Trumbauer and Julian Abele and built in 1906, was sold by his widow in 1913 to the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Relations, and has since housed the Embassy of Argentina.[2]

See also

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Hon. George Franklin Huff . Westmoreland County Genealogy Project . April 12, 1999 . January 26, 2014 . moved to Norristown, and from there to Middletown, in Dauphin County, and five years later removed to Altoona, Pennsylvania. ... When four years of age he accompanied his parents to Middletown, where he attended the public schools until 1851, when his parents moved to Altoona. .
  2. Web site: Building. Embassy of Argentina. 2017-06-13. 2019-07-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20190728193703/http://www.embassyofargentina.us/en/embassy/its-building.html. dead.