Richens Lacy (or Lacey) Wootton (1816 - 1893), often referred to as "Uncle Dick" Wootton, was an American frontiersman born in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, but lived most of his life in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. In his early life Wootton was a mountain man and trapper, then a hunter at

Bent's Fort Bent's Old Fort is an 1833 fort located in Otero County in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain built the fort to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Plains Indians and ...

. In 1866, he hired a tribe of Utes under

Chief Conniache Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boa ...

to build a toll road through

Raton Pass Ratón Pass is a 7,834 ft (2,388 m) elevation mountain pass on the Colorado–New Mexico border in the western United States. It is located on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Trinidad, Colorado and Raton, New ...

. He later sold the road to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and the railroad named one of their locomotives after him. He appears as a character in ''

Flashman and the Redskins ''Flashman and the Redskins'' is a 1982 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the seventh of the Flashman novels. Plot introduction Presented within the frame of the supposed discovery of a trunkful of papers detailing the long life and care ...

'' when Flashman employs him as a guide. Flashman and his caravan are forced to abandon him when he catches cholera. He is referenced in Michener's "Centennial ".

References

online biography of Wootton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wootton, Richens Lacy 1816 births 1893 deaths American pioneers