[1] [2] Among other crimes, he was accused of helping American privateer prisoners escape back to Boston.
[3] According to historian Barry Cahill, this trial was the most important court proceedings against a New England Planter patriot along Nova Scotia’s South Shore, which included the Townships of Liverpool, Yarmouth and Barrington.
[4] Through the trials for sedition, the Nova Scotia (Loyalist) government at Halifax was able to establish the “legal repression and the general criminalization of political dissent.”[5] Houghton's trial was only one of two in the province (John Frost (minister) was the other) that were successfully prosecuted.
During the French and Indian War, from April to November, 1754, he served on the eastern frontier in Col. John Winslow's regiment.
During the American Revolution, Timothy Houghton was sentenced to six months in jail for seditious statements about the King.