Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1914 — PROMISING YOUTH OF A FEW YEARS AGO [ARTICLE]

PROMISING YOUTH OF A FEW YEARS AGO

Story of Downfall of Billy Rowan, Once Wealthy, Now a Wreck From Use of Dr^gg. William Rowan, who was* employed in a livery barn at Winamac, was last week taken to the asylum. It is said that he had been a steady user of morphine and opium for thirty years. Tuesday night of last wrecked the furniture in the office of the barn where he slept. After breaking up the chairs and the bed he tore -the (bedclothes into pieces and then poked'his head through the window, breaking the glass and badly cutting his face! He was found on the floor in an unconscious condition but soon revived and started to fight and curse and it required several men to overpower him. The Winamac DemocratJoumal mentions the ease as follows: To the old-time residents of Wiifamac the case seems particularly pitiful. Forty years ago “Billy” Rowan was a 'promising young man, the owner of a fortune variously estimated at from $50,000 to $75,000. He was a son of the late Henry P. Rowan, one of the pioneer merchants of this place. At the death of his father, Billy began the task of getting ijd of his share of the fortune which his father had piled up for him. In a few years he had squandered his money and was on the downward and later on he became a dope fiend of a pronounced type. For the past ten or twelve years he has worked around livery barns, oi at whatever else he could find to do, resorting at times even to begging to procure money with which to procure a supply of his favorite drugs. Those wShqJsttfiw young Rowan in the old days, would scarcely recognize the white haired, shriveled up wreck of a man who was carried to the mad house last Wednesday, probably never to return alive. In his palmy days it is related that Rowan was accustomed to light his cigars with $5 bills, and was known to have on several .occasions hired special trains and brass bands, with a colored valet, to accompany him and his convivial friends about the country on their wijd escapades.”