December 19, 1904
Father Francis J. Wattron
Father Wattron was a priest in Kansas for forty years with thirty of those years at Fort Scott. Due to an illness that was to plague him for the last ten years of his life, he was forced to retire. He was bedfast the last two years of his life. On December 19, 1904 he died at his home in Fort Scott at seventy-one years of age. “He was loved by all of his people and respected by the community at large. His Church was his life. He had a faithful trust to perform in this world and he fulfilled his mission, and did it well.” (The Fort Scott Tribune and Monitor, reprinted in The Catholic Advance, Dec. 31, 1904)