Background
In 1823 his father, David C. Wootton, moved with his family to Christian County, Ky.
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Richens Lacy Wootton
Edit ProfileSettler Trapper trapper pioneer settler country hunter farming career fighter
Career
In the summer of 1836 young Wootton journeyed to Independence, Mo. , and thence by wagon-train to Bent's Fort.
Three years later he was actively engaged in trading among the Indians.
In February 1847 he took part in suppressing the insurrection in Taos.
He next joined Col. A. W. Doniphan [q. v. ], at El Paso del Norte, to serve as a scout on the Chihuahua expedition.
He was in the battle of Sacramento (Feb. 28, 1847), and immediately thereafter returned with dispatches to Santa Fé.
At Taos he established himself in business, but in the following year guided Col. Edward Newby in his Navajo campaign.
In 1852, with twenty-two helpers, Wootton drove a flock of nearly 9, 000 sheep to California, a feat antedating by a year the famous Carson-Maxwell drive.
He next engaged in freighting.
Chance brought him to the new settlement of Denver in the winter of 1858-59.
In the following year, in partnership with George C. McBride, he began the enterprise for which he is perhaps best known.
Over the roughest portion of the mountain division of the Santa Fé Trail, a stretch of twenty-seven miles from Trinidad, Colo. , across Raton Pass and down to the Canadian River, he built a substantial road, and near the crest erected a residence and an inn and set up a tollgate.
The road was opened in 1866 and proved highly profitable, but in 1879 it was paralleled by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad, and the collection of tolls was discontinued.
Wootton remained there, however, until 1891, when his residence was destroyed by fire.
of N. Mex.
(1907), I, 102-08; Bess McKinnan, "The Toll Road over Raton Pass, " N. Mex.
Hist.
Rev. , Jan. 1927; Portr.
and Biog.
Politics
Record of the State of Col. (1899); Henry Inman, The Old Santa Fé Trail (1897); G. D. Bradley, Winning the Southwest (1912); Denver Republican, Aug. 23, 1893. ]
Personality
His manner was kindly and genial, and he was notably generous and helpful.
Connections
He then settled near Trinidad, where two years later he died, survived by his second wife and three children.
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- Uncle:
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H. L. Conard, "Uncle Dick" Wootton (1890), largely an autobiog.; Hist.
Wootton, known familiarly as "Uncle Dick," was above medium height and strongly built, with a large, roundish head and a jovial face which he shaved smooth, though he wore his hair somewhat long.
About 1850 he married Dolores, the daughter of Manuel Le Fevre, a French-Canadian pioneer; she died in 1856 and some years later he remarried.
About 1850 he married Dolores, the daughter of Manuel Le Fevre, a French-Canadian pioneer; she died in 1856 and some years later he remarried.
