Shields, Joseph D. (Joseph Dunbar), 1820-1886

Joseph Dunbar Shields of Natchez, Miss., was a judge, legislator, planter, and author. He was born in Jefferson County, Miss., to William Bayard Shields (b. 1778), first justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court and participant in Mississipi's territorial politics, and Victoire Benoist (b. 1791).

In 1841, Shields married Elizabeth Fitzhugh Conway (d. 1883); they had seven children. Joseph Dunbar Shields Jr. (1842-1863) served under J.E.B. Stuart in the Civil War and was killed at Culpepper, Va. Daughter Mary married William Forman Dunbar, owner of Wakefield Plantation, Adams Co., Miss. They had four children. Daughter Elizabeth Murray, was active in staging historical productions in Natchez in the 1920s and 1930s.

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