John McConihe (d. 1760), Nutfield Settler

A guest sketch by James H. McConihe, a direct descendant

The reason this sketch did not get written sooner is that John McConihe is hard to find in the records — not because he wasn't there, but because the early Londonderry clerks could not agree on how to spell his name.

The name twelve clerks could not agree on

Across the Early Records of the Town of Londonderry, Windham and Derry, N.H., 1719–1745, edited by George Waldo Browne (Manchester Historic Association, Vol. I 1908, Vol. II 1911), the early town clerks took roughly nine separate runs at John's surname and produced roughly nine separate spellings: Conoghy, Conehey, Conechy, Conochey, Conachey, Conahie, Mckonoihy, McConihe, and — when he signed the Provincial Oaths of Allegiance with his X mark — simply Conihe. The Willey map of Nutfield adds a tenth, "McConoghy," and a 1729 laying-out throws in "MacConechy" for good measure. Even Rev. Edward L. Parker himself, recording the official Schedule of Proprietors of the Royal Charter at p. 326 of his History of Londonderry (1851), contributed a twelfth: "John McConoeighy." One suspects John, signing with his mark, had given up trying to correct anyone.

What the records show

Parker preserves John McConihe's legal standing as a chartered proprietor. The Schedule of Proprietors attached to the Royal Charter granted by Governor Samuel Shute on 21 June 1722 lists "John McConoeighy" with one share among the 124½ shares of the Town of Londonderry (Parker, p. 326).

The 1720 grant of his sixty-acre home lot survives in full in Early Records Vol. II, recorded by Town Clerk John Goffe on 25 February 1722/3:

"Nutfield 1720. Laid out to John M°Conoghy a lot of land in said town Containing sixty acres... beginning at a stake at the north end of the common field... together with an intrest in ye Common land equal to other lots in said Town."

Subsequent entries show him as an active proprietor for another two decades: forty acres additionally laid out in 1722 (Vol. II, p. 80); a further grant confirmed "to John MacConechy and his heirs & assigns for Ever in fee" at town meeting on 5 March 1729/30 (Vol. II, p. 224); and repeated appearances as a bounding abutter through the 1730s (Vol. II, pp. 256, 364).

Browne's Vol. I index, two centuries later, gathers most of the variants under one heading — "McConihe, John, 42, 53, 109, 171, 258, 383, 388" — with a small stray entry filed back under C, "Conihe, John, 384," for the oath-book version. Vol. II is more cooperative: "McConihe, John, lot, 80, 224, 256, 364." Together those eleven page references and Parker's Charter Schedule cover roughly two decades of an active proprietor's life — once you know to look for him under all his names.

Bedford

John removed from Londonderry to Bedford, New Hampshire in 1751 — joining the broader Scotch-Irish migration north over the Merrimack that Parker dates to the late 1730s and 1740s — and died there at the end of October 1760. He was buried beside his wife Mary in the old burying ground; the memorial is catalogued at Find A Grave (#67906800, Bedford Center Cemetery). He and Mary had two sons, John and Samuel, and three daughters. The New Hampshire line persisted through four generations before branches moved west to Illinois in the 1830s and 1840s.

Sources

Rev. Edward L. Parker, The History of Londonderry, Comprising the Towns of Derry and Londonderry, N.H. (Boston: Perkins and Whipple, 1851), p. 326

Early Records of the Town of Londonderry, Windham and Derry, N.H., 1719–1745, ed. George Waldo Browne, 2 vols. (Manchester Historic Association, 1908 and 1911)

George F. Willey, Willey's Book of Nutfield (1895), map facing p. 8 — archive.org/details/willeysbookofnut00will

Find A Grave memorial #67906800, Bedford Center Cemetery, New Hampshire

Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Transcription of an Early Nutfield Map," Nutfield Genealogy, 25 July 2016

James H. McConihe is a direct descendant of John McConihe through the Bedford, New Hampshire line. He welcomes contact from McConihe cousins and fellow researchers at jm2672@pacbell.net

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To cite/link to this blog post: James H. McConihe and Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "John McConihe (d. 1760), Nutfield Settler", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 9, 2026, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2026/06/john-mcconihe-d-1760-nutfield-settler.html: accessed [access date]).