Family name origins & meanings
- English : topographic name for someone who lived at a house on a hill, Middle English hill + hus.
- Scottish and northern Irish : habitational name from any of several minor places so called in Ayrshire.
- Rev. James Hillhouse, the first minister of Montville, CT, came to America from Co. Londonderry, Ireland, about 1720. His grandson James Hillhouse was a Federalist congressman from CT and treasurer of Yale College from 1782 to 1832.