Dispensary Constable J. Rollin Cooler

J. Rollin Cooler

Dispensary Constable Rollin Cooler was shot from ambush and fatally wounded while raiding five blind tigers on St. Helena Island in Beaufort County.

Constable Cooler and his deputy were walking towards a local gathering spot when a shotgun blast of buckshot struck him in the face. Earlier, Constable Cooler had a confrontation with a local store owner who threatened to kill him. Constable Cooler's brother, a Beaufort County Deputy Sheriff, and a posse of citizens arrested the store owner and four other men. Constable Cooler died the next day as he was being loaded on a boat to be taken to a hospital in Savannah.

The store owner and one of the other four men were convicted of first-degree murder. In the state's first double execution, both men died in the electric chair on September 4th, 1913.

Constable Cooler was survived by his wife and two children. His brother's son and grandson became law enforcement officers, and now his great-grandson is a law enforcement officer in South Carolina.

He is buried at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Bluffton, South Carolina.