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In 1806, Featherstonhaugh came to the US, to study Indian languages  He stay for 20 years, working as a farmer and advocating a steam railroad that would connect the Hudson River at Albany, New York with the navigable Mohawk River at Schenectady. He lived in the UK from 1826 to 1831, when he moved Philadelphia.  Construction of the railroad envisioned by Featherstonhaugh began on July 29, 1830 and was opened on August 13, 1831, when the DeWitt Clinton pulled the first train to Schenectady. 

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the US government sought to document the mineral resources of the territory. In 1834, Featherstonhaugh, newly appointed as the first U.S. government geologist, was instructed to examine the elevated country between the Missouri and Red rivers and report back to Colonel John James Abert of the Topographical Bureau.  With his son George Jr. as his assistant, he took stagecoaches from Baltimore, Maryland, to St. Louis, Missouri. In St. Louis, they purchased a horse they named “Missouri” and a Dearborn wagon for the travel into Arkansas.  In 1835, Featherstonhaugh traveled from Green Bay, Wisconsin up the fox river to the Wisconsin River, then downstream to Prairie du Chien, and into the Mississippi River. He paddled up the Mississippi, passing the St. Croix River and the Minnesota River, stopping at Carver's Cave and Saint Anthony Falls.