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1. Roelof Cornelissen, progenitor of the Van Houten family, is first found in 1638, when he is mentioned among the immigrants of that year to Rensselaerswyck, but he later settled in Amersfoort, L. I. In 1648 he as a soldier, for wounding the corporal, was obliged to ride the wooden horse, two hours a day for three days, with a ten-pound weight fastened to each foot, and pay the surgeon's bill besides forfeiting six months wages.
In 1657, the Schepens of Amersfoort in reporting an assessment of two hundred and sixty-seven florins, named Roelof Cornelissen and his wife, Gerritje Van Nes, the daughter of Cornelis Van Nes, who obtained a patent May 23, 1659, for twenty-five morgens of land near New Amersfoort.
Their children in later years assumed the name of Van Houten, which indicates that Roelof came from Houten, a small village in the southeastern part of the province of Utrecht in Holland.