John Schedde

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ⁶¹⁹
John Schedde's ancestor, and therefore Thomas Shedd's ancestor was likely John de Schedde. John de Schedde was born towards the close of the thirteenth century and is the earliest person who has been found bearing the Shedd Family name in England. He appears at Edwardstone, Suffolk, England in 1327, as assessed two shillings on a subsidy roll or tax list of a grant made by Parliament to the King in the first year of the reign of King Edward III. [Lay Subsidy, Suffolk, 180-186, Public Record Office, London]

Edwardstone is a small rural parish in Suffolk about sixty miles north-east of London and its church is about five miles east of the center of Sudbury, the nearest "important" town. The church of Edwardstone is an ancient flint structure built in the fifteenth century. The Shedd family name is found in the very heart of the region of England (Suffolk & Essex) from which was derived three centuries later over half of twenty-five Puritan founders of New England before 1650, the principal percentage of whose blood was of Anglo-Saxon origin, with small amounts of Norman, Danish and Briton strains. Adjoining Edwarstone on the east is Groton, the home of Governor John Winthrop, the leader in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

The "de" before the surname Schedde indicates it to be a place or locality surname. This first John being "of" or "at" Schedde. That the "Sch" spelling at the beginning of the name rather than "sh" was a very common spelling for that period, and continued until about 1500. The most plausible explanation for the use of the word as a name seems to be residence at a ridge, in the sense of the word still preserved in "water-shed."

This John de Schedde is the only person in suffolk and Essex with the name Schedde in the subsidy roll of 1327 with over twenty-five thousand heads of families representing for the two counties, with about a population of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand souls.

It seems reasonable to believe that he was the direct ancestor of the Scheddes who appear in the immediate vincinty of Edwardstone on records about a century later, from one of whom, John Schedde (born about 1390) of Sudbury, only five miles west of Edwardstone, an unbroken line can be traced in Essex down to our Daniel She, who emigrated to new England before 1642 and establish the Shedd family in North America.

~Daniel Shed Genealogy, pp. 1 - 2

John Schedde of Sudbury, Suffolk, England was born about 1390. This ancient town in Babergh Hundred in Suffolk is situated on the river Stour which separated the counties of Suffolk and Essex, and as early as the Norman Conquest (1066) was a market town of importance. About 1350, a small colony of Flemings introduced here the manufacture of woolen cloth, which rapidly increased in importance, flourish over four centuries as the main industry of the place, and then fell into decay. But, during the last century, it has been replaced by divers manufactures on a small scale, and the town has become a prosperous place of about ten thousand population. Since 1554, Sudbury has been an incorporated borough, and it comprises three parishes, All Saints, St. Gregory and St. Peter, the last name being in ancient times a chapelry of St. Gregory. The three churches are fine structures of flint and rubble, and built principally in the fifteenth century, of which St. Gregory is the most ancient and imposing. the head of Simon de Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was seized and beheaded by a mob during Wat Tyler's Bolshevik rebellion in 1381, is still to be seen in a grated niche in the walls of St. Gregory's Church.

Our knowledge concerning John Schedde is obtained from some ancient manor court rolls of Sudbury which state that he was a fuller (or Woolen cloth refiner). The mentions of John Schedde extended from 1420 until 1437, and among them are the following items:

Court held 22 Apr. 8 Henry V (1420); John Schedde applies for licence to settle with John Martyn in a plea of trespass.

Court held 22 Sept. 11 Henry VI (1432); John Schedde, fuller, paid 2s to the lord of the manor, part of a find of 8s to excuse the burgesses of the town from attendance.

Court held on Monday after St. Hilary, 12 Henry VI (18 Jan 1433/4); John Schedde sued Agnes Hurry in a plea of trespass; found in mercy on a false claim and fined 2d.

Court held 12 Dec 14 Henry VI (1435); John Dendall, John Bocher and John Martyn fined 2d each for not coming to serve on a jury in a suit between John Schedde, plaintiff, and John Goday, defendant, in plea of trespass.

Court held Hoke Monday 15 Henry VI (8 Apr 1437); the executors of John Schedde paid for 2d for a false claim against John Bocher in a plea of trespass.

The will of John Schedde is not preserved, and the name of his wife is unknown.

~Daniel Shed Genealogy, pp. 2-4