Background
Joseph Miller Huston was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1866.
Joseph Miller Huston was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1866.
He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1895.
Construction started in 1902 of his Beaux-Arts design. He was one of five people convicted of graft in 1910 after a state investigation of cost overruns in association with construction and furnishing the capitol. Huston first worked with Frank Furness, an influential architect based in Philadelphia, before starting his own firm.
In 1898-1899, Huston toured Europe and Asia, seeing a range of historic styles which greatly influenced his later designs.
Huston designed the Pennsylvania State Memorial at Gettysburg Battlefield. In the end, the total cost of the project was nearly triple what the legislature had appropriated, in part because of inflated costs for construction and furnishings due to the state"s purchasing mechanism.
Huston and four other officials were convicted of graft in 1910 and sentenced to up to two years in prison for their parts in the overruns. Although he appealed, Huston lost his case in 1911 and went to prison.
In 1895, he designed the Witherspoon Building at Philadelphia.
In 1911, he designed the Searles Memorial Methodist Church, now located in the Old Pottstown Historic District.