George Purdy Hunt was born around 1836 in England. He eventually immigrated to America and settled in New York City. He earned a living as a machinist. He attended the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, and an official there reported that he “passed regularly his examinations in the classes in Mechanical Drawing & Mathemat[ics].”
He joined the United States Navy during the Civil War, receiving an appointment as a 3rd assistant engineer in July 1861. He was promoted to 2nd assistant engineer in 1863 and then to 1st assistant engineer in 1866. His commanders praised the “faithfulness and the attitudes which [he] displayed in the performance of [his] duties while under sudden & trying emergencies.”
He married Cordelia Eames on December 11, 1865, and they had at least three children: Alice, born around 1867; Francis, born on May 23, 1870; and George, born on December 10, 1876. They lived in Charleston, Massachusetts, until the 1870s, when they moved to New Jersey and then to Erie, Pennsylvania. He remained in the navy, and he eventually earned a promotion to chief engineer. He died of gastralgia on board the steamship Catalonia on April 5, 1887, en route from Liverpool, England, to Boston, Massachusetts.