Tombstone Tuesday ~ John McMurphy, died 1755 in Londonderry, New Hampshire "Justice of the Quorum"

This tombstone was photographed at Forest Hill Cemetery, Derry, New Hampshire

In Memory of                            In Memory of

  JOHN McMURPHY            Mrs. MARY McMURPHY

Esq. Justice of the                                Relict of       

 Quorum who                           John McMurphy

departed this life                           Esqr.  who died

Sept. ye 21st  AD  1755             Nov. ye 19th AD 1770

AEtat  73                                   AEtat 87

He represented this Town                                               

as a member of the General                                            

Court between 20 & 30 years                                          

John McMurphy was one of three brothers (John, Archibald and Alexander) who came to Londonderry, New Hampshire with their parents (James McMurphy) from Northern Ireland.  John McMurphy, Esquire, was born in 1682, married Mary Cargill and had five children.  His father was from Scotland, migrated to Northern Ireland and participated in the siege of Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1689.  

According to Parker's The History of Londonderry, the first house built in Nutfield was for Reverend McGregor, and the second house was for John McMurphy, Esquire. 

This entry is in the Londonderry town records [according to page 20 of Parker's The History of Londonderry]

"John McMurphy, Esq., Justice of the Quorum, departed this life September 21, 1755, at Portsmouth, and was carried to Londonderry on Tuesday and buried on Wednesday, the 24th at the old burying place in this town, with an extraordinary company, aged about seventy-three years." 

I was curious about his title "Justice of the Quorum", and so I consulted with Judy G. Russell, The Legal Genealogist , who stated "Under some statutory systems, the most respected, usually best educated justices of the peace were designated as justices of the quorum and while much could be done by a single JP, other things couldn't be acted on without the presence of the required number of justices of the quorum."

The off center winged cherubs heads on this double tombstone caught my eye as I was wandering Forest Hill Cemetery last summer.  Although McMurphy lived in Londonderry, and was buried in Londonderry, and is featured in The History of Londonderry, this cemetery is now in the part of town that was named Derry after the schism in the early 1800s. 

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Tombstone Tuesday ~ John McMurphy, died 1755 in Londonderry, New Hampshire, "Justice of the Quorum" ",  Nutfield Genealogy, posted August 18, 2015, http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2015/08/tombstone-tuesday-john-mcmurphy-died.html:  accessed [access date]).