In 1646, when Thomas Kirtland was a young man, he joined with his parents in the purchase of a house in West Haddon for £22. Father and son were both butchers and rented a close of pasture near the house from John Ward. With good grazing to hand they could feed stock to the peak of quality before slaughter. In 1651 John sold the pasture to his neighbour Sam Newman (another butcher) who continued to rent it to Thomas Kirtland for another year until Thomas bought it himself – at a nice profit for Sam.
We shall never know what provoked Thomas and two other butchers – Henry Cosby and Edward Smith – to set upon Sam at Harlestone a few years later, but possibly that land sale or other business dealings had sown the seeds of animosity between them. (See post for August 2 – Samuel Newman: butcher and brawler?)
Perhaps Thomas had an argumentative temperament, which he may have passed on to at least one of his sons.
In 1678 he settled the house and some land on his elder son Edward and his new 
wife Alice. The house still stands in the village. (Not bad for £22!)
At his death in 1683 Thomas bequeathed other property to his younger son, Thomas junior. Some years later the brothers were fighting a case through the Court of Chancery as Edward accused his younger brother of taking property that should have been his. The Court noted that,
they never lived together in so kind and friendly a manner as brothers should have done, neither was there such friendship and kindness showed between them as ought to be maintained betwixt near relatives and good neighbours…
The breach was partly healed in the next generation when Thomas junior, who had no children of his own, left his property divided between his wife and the son of his elder brother Edward.