John migrated to Australia in the late 1880s with his wife and sole surviving son. He died on 7 August 1891 when the spring cart he was driving rolled on him after hitting tree roots in a creek he was crossing.
John's death certificate records his surname as McCahon and his father as William McCahon. However his baptism records his surname as McCaughey and his son, George Henry, was always called McCaughey. It seems that from around the late 1870s all of John's siblings changed from using the surname McCaughey and instead started using the surname McCahon.
