Person:Lieutenant Houghton (1)

This strange given name is presumed to be a way to name a child after his father, Lieutenant Jonathan Houghton, who "was lieut. in Captain John Prescott's Company, which was sent out to aid Admiral Vernon's disastrous expedition against the Spanish West Indies", and who already had a son named Jonathan. One would suspect he was a posthumous child, hence the need to honor the father.

Lieutenant is named as the youngest son in the distribution of his father's real estate. His death date has on occasion been assigned to his brother Jonathan (e.g., this gravestone), apparently mistaking the given name for a title. The brother is confusingly called Lieut. Jonathan by Source:Houghton, John Wesley. Houghton Genealogy instead of the more appropriate Captain. Further, the Houghton Genealogy has no mention of the person named Lieutenant, and since there is no recorded birth, his existence does not seem to be widely known.

There is a probate file for Lieutenant which documents that he was a person non compos mentis as a child and adult, so certainly not an actual lieutenant. This and other sources are referenced in a long discussion of Lieutenant on his brother's page, which has not been repeated here.

1. ↑ Bolton, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Vital records of Bolton, Massachusetts, to the end of the year 1849. (Worcester, Mass.: Franklin P. Rice, 1910)
   p. 209.

   HOUGHTON, Lieut. ---, [died] Oct. 29, 1780.