Supposedly one of John's descendants, living in Washington, D.C., has a sword brought to America by John that has the rose and thisle on it, the family coat of arms granted by King James I in 1612 to Sir Roger as an augmentation to his coat of arms. A 1995 letter from Barry Eager of Berlin, Massachusetts states that there is an unpublished book (in four 4-ring binders) in the Lancaster Town Library entitled Early Families of Lancaster, Massachusetts 1643-1700 by Reverend Dr. 
Frederick Lewis Weis. According to Mr. Eager, the material, published in 1941, corrects many of the problems with the published Houghton genealogies. The book was reviewed by this author in 1998.

According to the book of Houghton History by Arthur Smith, at least by the information someone hand-wrote in the copy at the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston, John was the son of John Houghton and Damaris Buckmaster and that he was christened on 12-24-1624 in Lancaster, England. This John Houghton should not be confused with the John Holton\Houghton of Dedham that married 1667 Abigail Fisher.

Historical
1624-1642: France - As chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu centralises power in France
1625: United States - New Amsterdam founded by the Dutch West India Company in North America
1626: Italy - St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican completed
1626: United States - The Dutch buy Manhattan Island for $24, a presence is established but no large settlements made
1627: France - Cardinal Richelieu lays siege to Protestant La Rochelle which eventually capitulates
1629: France - Cardinal Richelieu allies with Swedish Protestant forces in the Thirty Years War to counter expansion by Ferdinand II
1631: Italy - Mount Vesuvius erupts near Naples
1632: germany - Battle of Lutzen (first of two), death of king of Sweden Gustav II Adolf
1633: Italy - Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition
1633: United States - The city of Baltimore is settled
1634: Ethiopia - Emperor Fasilides expels the Catholic Patriarch Afonso Mendes and several Jesuit missionaries from Ethiopia
1634: Germany - Battle of Nordlingen (first of two), in Bavaria, results in Catholic victory
1636: Ethiopia - Emperor Fasilides founds the city of Gondar, which becomes the capital of Ethiopia for the next two centuries
1636: United States - Harvard University is founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts
1636: United States - Roger Williams is driven from Puritan Massachusetts and settles Rhode Island, a haven for religious freedom
1638: United States - Delaware is settled by Peter Minuet
1639-1651: England, Ireland, Scotland - Wars of the Three Kingdoms, civil wars throughout Scotland, Ireland, and England
1639: Italy - Disagreements between the Farnese and Barberini Pope Urban VIII escalate into the Wars of Castro and last until 1649
1639: Spain, England - Naval Battle of the Downs, Republic of the United Provinces fleet decisively defeats a Spanish fleet in English waters
1639: United States - John Wheelwright is banished from Boston and founds a colony in New Hampshire
1640-1668: Portugal - The Portuguese Restoration War led to the end of the Iberian Union
1640: England - Torture is outlawed in England
1640: Scotland - King Charles was compelled to summon Parliament due to the revolt of the Scots
1640: United States - The population of the American Colonies is estimated at 5,700. Starting in the 1990's, Charles Anderson of the New England Historic Genealogical Society begins books that provides information about all persons in New England by 1640.
1641: France - Rene Descartes publishes Meditationes de prima philosophia Meditations on First Philosophy
1641: Ireland - The Irish Rebellion
1641: Japan - The Tokugawa Shogunate Institutes Sakoku, foreigners are expelled and no one is allowed to enter or leave Japan
1642-1649: England - Civil War in England, Charles I is beheaded by Cromwell
1642: England - Isaac Newton is born
1642: Neatherlands, New Zealand - Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand
1644-1674: Mauritania - The Mauritanian Thirty-Year War
1644: China - The Manchu conquer China ending the Ming Dynasty, the subsequent Qing Dynasty rules until 1912
1644: Italy - Giovanni Battista Pamphili is elected Pope Innocent X at the Papal conclave of 1644
1645-1669: Turkey, Italy - Ottoman war with Venice, the Ottomans Invade Crete and capture Canea
1645: Japan - The death of Miyamoto Musashi, legendary Japanese Samurai warrior of natural causes
1647-1652: Spain - The Great Plague of Seville
1647: Turkey - Seven-year-old Mehmed IV becomes Ottoman sultan
1648-1653: France - Fronde civil war in France
1648-1667: Poland, Lithuania - The Deluge wars leave Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in ruins
1648-1669: Turkey, Italy - The Ottomans capture Crete from the Venetians after the Siege of Candia
1648: Spain, Italy - The Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years War and the Eighty Years War and marks the ends of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire as major European powers
1649-1653: Ireland - The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
1650: United States - An estimated 40,000 people are living in the American Colonies
1652: England, Netherlands - Anglo-Dutch Wars begin
1652: South Africa - Cape Town founded by the Dutch East India Company in South Africa
1654-1661: Turkey, Albania - Mehmed Koprulu is Grand Vizier
1655-1661: Sweden - The Northern Wars cement the rise of Sweden as a Great Power
1658: India - After his father Shah Jahan completes the Taj Mahal, his son Aurangzeb deposes him as ruler of the Mughal Empire
1660: England - Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge founded
1660: England - The Commonwealth of England ends and the monarchy is brought back during the English Restoration
1661: China - The reign of the Kangxi Emperor of China begins
1661: India - Mehmed Koprulu dies and is succeeded by his son Ahmed
1662: France - Jacques Aymar-Vernay, who later reintroduced Dowsing into popular use in Europe, is born
1663: France - France takes full political and military control over Its colonial possessions in New France, microscope of Hooke discovers cells
1663: Turkey, Austria-Hungary - Ottoman war against Habsburg Hungary
1664: England - Forestry book by John Evelyn called Sylva is published in England
1664: Hungary, Turkey - Battle of St. Gotthard (first of two), count Raimondo Montecuccoli defeats the Ottomans, the Peace of Vasvar is Intended to keep the peace for twenty years
1664: United States - British troops capture New Amsterdam and rename It New York
1665: England - The Great Plague of London (aka. Bubonic Plague, Black Death) kills 70,000 people
1665: Portugal, Congo - Portugal defeats the Kongo Empire
1666: England - The Great Fire of London burns most of the city
1667-1668: France, Netherlands - The War of Devolutionm France Invades the Netherlands, the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) brings this to a halt
1667-1699: Turkey - The Great Turkish War halts the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe
1668: Spain, Portugal - Peace Treaty of Lisbon between Spain and Portugal recognizes Portugal as Independent country
1669: Turkey, Crete - The Ottomans capture Crete
1670: Canada - The Hudson Bay Company is founded in Canada
1672-1673: Turkey, Ukraine - Ottoman campaign to help the Ukrainian Cossacks, John Sobieski defeats the Ottomans at the second battle of Khotyn (1673)
1672-1676: Poland, Turkey - Polish-Ottoman War
1672-1678: France, Netherlands - Franco-Dutch War
1672: Belgium - Lynching of Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis de Witt in the Hague, William III of Orange takes power
1672: Netherlands, France, England, Germany - Rampjaar in the Netherlands, combined attack by France, England and two German states on the Republic of the United Provinces
1674: England - The Treaty of Westminster ends the war between England and the Republic of the United Provinces
1674: India - Maratha Empire founded in India by Shivaji
1676-1681: Russia, Turkey - Russia and the Ottoman Empire fight the second (of ten) Russo-Turkish Wars, Turkish victory
1676: Poland, Turkey - The Treaty of Zurawno brings Polish-Ottoman hostilities to a halt
1676: Turkey - Kara Mustafa becomes Grand Vizier
1678: Netherlands, France - The Treaty of Nijmegen ends the hostilities between the Netherlands and France
1680: United States, Spain - The Pueblo Revolt drives the Spanish out of New Mexico until 1692
1681: Hungary - The Pasha of Buda supports rebellion led by Imre Thokoly in Hungary
1682-1683: Turkey - The Ottomans make camp at Adrianople
1682: Russia - Peter the Great becomes joint ruler of Russia (sole tsar in 1696)
1682: Turkey - Sultan Mehmed IV, advised by Kara Mustafa, decides to disregard the existing peace treaty with Leopold I, due to expire in 1684
1682: United States - La Salle explores the length of the Mississippi River and claims Louisiana for France
1683: Austria - A Habsburg council of war is held in Vienna
1683: Austria - The Battle of Vienna finishes the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire in southeastern Europe
1683: China - China conquers the Kingdom of Tungning and annexes Taiwan