Long employed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, he also helped build the first rail link between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and points south.
[1] In the late 1820s, Hazlehurst served as one of the assistants to Benjamin H. Latrobe, a civil engineer who helped survey the Baltimore and Ohio's routes to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia; and Washington, D.C.[2] Latrobe was let go after the work was completed, and in 1835 became chief engineer of the Baltimore and Port Deposit Railroad, with Hazlehurst again among his assistants.
(This main line survives today as part of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.)
Hazlehurst's service as a railroad builder is noted on the 1839 Newkirk Viaduct Monument in Philadelphia, although his name is misspelled.
[4] Hazlehurst married Elizabeth McKim, granddaughter of PW&B executive John McKim Jr.; their children included George Blagden Hazlehurst (1855-1919), an engineer who went to work for the B&O and ultimately rose to the position of General Superintendent of Motive Power.