In 1830, Houghton, only 20 years old and a recent graduate of New York's Rensselaer Scientific School, arrived in the Michigan Territory at the request of its territorial leaders and patrons of science. He won a reputation as a competent naturalist while serving on the Schoolcraft Expeditions along the shores of Lake Superior and to the Mississippi River in 1831 and 1832. It was at this time that he discovered the true location of the Keweenawan copper deposits and the value of the mineral lands (owned by the Chippewa Indians) west of the meridian of Marquette. This knowledge enabled him to propose that the government of the Michigan Territory relinquish to Ohio its claim to the "Toledo Strip" and in lieu receive the Chippewa lands and attain statehood in January, 1837. When Michigan became a state, Houghton was appointed Michigan's first State Geologist. Among his accomplishments, in this state largely covered by forests and glacial sediment, was not only to discover and map the basin structure of the sedimentary rocks of the eastern half of Michigan's Northern Peninsula and all the Southern Peninsula, but also to develop a valid theory concerning the formation, structure, and position of Michigan's copper-bearing rocks. In 1843, this theory was presented to the Association of American Geologists, of which he was a founder. But Houghton was never able to complete his geological work: at age 36 he drowned in Lake Superior when a sudden winter storm capsized his boat. His untimely death, and the fact that young Michigan had little money for publishing scientific reports, helps to explain why Houghton's geological work has not received the national recognition it deserves.