George Frederick Houghton was born in Guilford on this day in 1820. He graduated from the University of Vermont at nineteen began to study law.

Two years later, Houghton was admitted to the Vermont bar. He settled in St. Albans and served as Vermont’s secretary of civil and military affairs in 1848 and 49, and later served as state’s attorney.

Houghton established the Vermont Transcript, a weekly newspaper in St. Albans, and had a personal interest in preserving a significant amount of Vermont history. Houghton helped to found the Vermont Historical Society and was president at the time of his death in 1870.

Image courtesy the Vermont Historical Society.