Edwin Thompson Denig

Edwin Thompson Denig married "Deer Little Woman", Assiniboine Indian. Edwin was born in McConnellstown, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania on March 10, 1812. He was the son of Dr. George Denig, a physician. Edwin joined the fur trade at the age of twenty-one. The American Fur Company records show Denig's first-term contract dated April 10, 1833, for one year of service at $400 per annum. In 1837 he was reassigned to Fort Union where he rose through the ranks. In 1843 he became chief clerk and in 1848 he was appointed bourgeois, the superintending officer of the post. Fort Union was built in 1829 at the meeting of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers to support the expansion of the fur trade on the Upper Missouri. Denig was noted for being the most prolific and knowledgeable writer on the Indian tribes of the Upper Missouri in the mid-nineteenth century.

A Pencil Sketch of Fort Union 1852