Lionell Shea III (1 June 1805-24 September 1869) was an American planter from South Carolina.
Biography[]
Lionell Shea III was born in Jamestown, South Carolina in 1805, the great-grandson of an Irish immigrant who established the "Erin" plantation near Bethera. Shea trained as a lawyer, but devoted the entirety of his attention to growing his family's profits and expanding his landholdings. He expanded Erin around the Little Hellhole Bay, which he privately called "my little charming pond." Shea was initially a Democratic-Republican and a Democrat before joining in the Nullifier Party's revolt during the Nullification Crisis, as he feared that a tariff would ruin his agricultural output. Shea unsuccessfully contested a State House election as a Whig before returning to the Democrats; he opposed the Whigs' views on temperance and Catholicism. Shea lost his wealth during the American Civil War, and he died in 1869.