Father Harry David Hurst was born in Bardstown, Kentucky on July 8, 1916. He graduated from St. Joe Preparatory School in 1938. Father Harry David Hurst attended St. Mary's College, Kentucky from 1934 to 1935 and St. Meinrad Seminary, Indiana and Catholic University in Washington D.C. from 1936 to 1943.

Father Harry David Hurst taught at the Portsmouth Abbey School from 1944 to 1980, and also at the Catholic Seminary of Indianapolis, Indiana from 1969 to 1974.

As a recipient of a grant from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation of New York City, Father Harry David Hurst was enabled to study handwritten manuscripts of the writings of St. Bede (673 -725), who was an influential English Benedictine monk. Father Harry David Hurst transcribed the original Latin of these manuscripts preserved at Oxford University, England, Munich, Germany, the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and the Vatican Library, Rome, and had them printed in Europe in six volumes. He later translated these into English and included in the publications of the Cistercian Publication series of the Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo, Michigan.