According to the English ancestry section by J. Gardner Bartlett in the Shed Genealogy,534 Thomas Shedd “was born in Debden, County Essex, in 1545, and was living there at the time of his marriage in 1572. During the next four years he resided in the adjoining parish of Great Easton, and in 1576 moved into the adjacent larger town of Thaxted where he continued about a score of years. While living there he inherited by the will of his father in 1584/5 four acres of land called ‘The Lees,’ an encolsed field called ‘Mays’ and a legacy of £20 in money. He later returned to Great Easton, where he died in 1612, aged about sixty-seven years. In various records he is termed a husbandman.

“Great Easton is a rural village and parish comprising about twenty-five hundred acres, mostly well cultivated, and with a population of about one thousand. There are two ancient manors, viz., the small Manor of Blamsted Hall, and the principal Manor of Great Easton. The church of Great Easton is an ancient stone structure of mixed styles of architecture from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, and its parish registers are preserved from 1558. Thaxted has always been a more populous and important [p. 16] place, and existed as a town even in the Roman period; about 1555 it was created a borough and market town, and was in ancient times an important center of the iron trade; but the corporate charter was annulled in 1687. Thaxted covers over six thousand acres, has a population of about two thousand, and has quite a village near the ancient church which is a large and fine flint and stone structure with buttressed and embattled walls, and a western tower surmounted by a lofty croketed spire. The registers date from 1538. The ancient village Guild hall and the castellated manor house of Horham Hall, two miles south-west of the church, are picturesque edifices. The socialist Countess of Warwick is not the principal landowner and the patron of the vicarage in which she has placed a socialist clergyman who flies a red flag in the church to the perturbation of the community.

“A Thaxted litigation furnishes some interesting information about Thomas9 Shedd. From the bills of complaint, answers, replications, and voluminous interrogatories and depositions in the matter, the following facts gleaned in the case of Cutts vs. Armiger and Sparrow. In 1570, Sir John Cutts, Knt., lord of the Manor of Horham Hall in Thaxted, removed for some years from Thaxted and leased for forty-one years a large farm in the manor, with farm houses, to one Edward Armiger who settled there. On 29 Sept. 1579 the latter privately sub-leased part of this farm for nine years to Thomas9 Shedd, a few years later privately mortgaged the farm to a nephew, one Robert Sparrow, and afterwards publicly conveyed a part of the residue of his term to one Richard Clark. In 1584 Sir John Cutts resumed residence at Horham Hall, and desiring the use of Armiger’s farm he bought back the term of Armiger and the interest of Clark, both of whom doubtless exacted a high price from the knight. After completing this transaction, the latter was confronted with the to him undisclosed encumbrances to Shedd and Sparrow. Sir John then brought suits in equity against Armiger and Sparrow in June 1584, both in the Court of Chancery and the Court of Star Chamber, alleging the purported conveyances to Shedd and Sparrow were fraudulent. Among the interrogatories by Cutts to Armiger the eighth dealt with Shedd, viz: ‘What is Thomas Shedde named in your answer, where does he dwell, what part of the premises does he hold, by what assurance, for what period, at what date and at what rent? When, where and by whom was the alleged deed made and who were the witnesses?’. In reply Armiger deposes: ‘Thomas Shedd named in interrogatory is a husbandman dwelling in Thaxted, and deponent granted to him the greatest part of the premises by indenture of lease to said Shead for nine years for a certain yearly rent therein specified, and previous to the mortgage to Sparrow. [p. 17] But defendant received no fine [or cash payment] for this lease on which there were no agreements other than as specified in said indenture which was written by one Barnard of Stortford [Bishop’s Stortford, co. Herts], a scrivener; and one Richardson and another Barnard were witnesses.’ ‘Thomas Shedde of Thaxted, County Essex, husbandman, of the age of forty years, deposes 30 Jan. 1585/6. He knoweth the complainant and hath seen the defendant Sparrow, and knoweth the farm and lands in Thaxted which Edward Armiger had by lease of Sir John Cutts. The deponent states that he is the same Thomas Shedd referred to in the interrogatory, and further states that said Armiger did lease the greatest part of said farm to him this deponent for the term of nine years, which lease is yet in being and in force, and of said term there are yet enduring and to come two years and as much more as unto the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel next ensuing [29 Sept. 1586]. And deponent sayeth that he has occupied said leased part of said farm in his own tenure and occupation, and dwelt upon the same by virtue of said lease.’ (Star Chamber Proceedings, Elizabeth, C-6-39 and C-77-5; also Town Depositions in Chancery, Bundle 182.) The above farm became known as ‘Armigers,’ still bears that name, and the mansion is on the north-westerly side of the highway from Broxted to Thaxted, half-way between the churches of these parishes and at the junction of a driveway to Horham Hall which is a quarter of a mile behind ‘Armigers.’ In the suit in 1584 between John Cutts and Edward Armiger the latter states the lease was made in 12 Elizabeth [1570] through a fine; and a fine is recorded, made in Easter, 12 Elizabeth, between Arthur Armiger and William Frevell, querants, and John Cutts and wife Anne, deforciants, of two dwellinghouses, two gardens, one hundred and forty acres of arable land, twenty acres of meadow, sixty acres of pasture and six acres of woodland, in Thaxted, County Essex; consideraton £372. (Feet of Fines, Essex, Easter, 12 Elizabeth, Record Office, London.) This fine must be the one referred to by Edward Armiger, and the querants mentioned were evidently feoffees acting for him, Arthur Armiger being his son. Fines made through feoffees were a common practice, the exact nature and details of the transaction appearing only in the indentures.

“The mansion still called ‘Armigers’ was always occupied during his tenure from 1570 to 1584 by Edward Armiger himself, according to his own statements in the suit; and as Thomas9 Shedd states that after he subleased from Armiger in 1579 the ‘greatest part’ of said farm that he ‘dwelt upon same,’ he must have lived in the other dwellinghouse (with garden) mentioned in the fine. About two hundred yards beyond the mansion of ‘Armigers,’ [p. 18] towards Thaxted and on the same side of the highway, is a very ancient cottage, still included in Armiger’s Farm and tenanted, and now called ‘Common Cottage’ from its location near some commons land. From its construction and appearance this old house seems to have been built before the reign of Elizabeth (1558) and there is no other old house on Armgers Farm (except the mansion). It is therefore apparent that this ‘Common Cottage’ was the very house occupied several years after 1579 by Thomas9 Shed, great-grandfather of Daniel12 Shed, the emigrant to America about 1640. This house is about forty feet long and fifteen feet deep, with stucco exterior walls and thatched roof. The ground floor is paved and the main room has a huge fireplace. The main story is less than seven feet high, and there being no plastered ceiling, all the curious handhewn timberwork of the second floor is clearly visible.

“The will of Thomas Shedd of Great Eystane [Easton], County Essex, husbandman, sick in body but in perfect memory, dated 8 June, 10 James I. [1612] To be buried in the parish churchyard of Great Eystane. To my son Thomas Shedd 3s. 4d. to be paid within three months after my decease by my executors. To my son William Sheed 3s. 4d. to be paid within three months after my decease by my executors. To my son Daniel Shed 3s. 4d. to be paid within three months after my decease by my executors. To my daughter Mary Shed a flock bed, a pillow, a blanket, a covering, and a pewter platter, to be delivered by my executors. All the rest of my goods that were mine before I married Elizabeth my now wife, I give to my said wife Elizabeth and to John Shedd my son, to be equally divided between them. All the goods that I had by my said wife Elizabeth, I give to her again. I appoint my wife Elizabeth and my son John Shedd executors, and the charges of the court to be borne by all my children named in my will. [Signed] Thomas + Shed [mark]. Witnesses: Samuel Enever, John Wright. Proved 1 Oct. 1612. (Commissary Court of the Bishop of London for Essex and Herts, Original Will, Bundle for 1612.)”