American frontiersman, mountain man, trapper, and guide Richens Lacy “Uncle Dick” Wootton was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, on May 6, 1816. At the age of 7, the family moved to Kentucky, where Richens stayed until he was 17. He then moved to Mississippi, where he worked on his uncle’s cotton plantation for two years before going to Independence, Missouri, in 1836.
