The title page of “Gentle Annie” was deposited for copyright on April 24, 1856. It was originally published by Firth, Pond & Co.

The first score listed below is the edition that was used in the Foster Hall Reproductions and The Music of Stephen C. Foster: A Critical Edition. 

According to Evelyn Foster Mornweck’s The Chronicles of Stephen Foster's Family:

There is a tradition that a little girl named Annie Jenkins, daughter of Morgan Jenkins, a grocer of Federal Street, Allegheny, inspired Stephen’s song “Gentle Annie.” Stephen had frequently seen the child in her father’s store and was greatly attracted by her sweet and amiable disposition. Her sudden death affected Stephen deeply, and it is said he told her father that the song was written in Annie’s memory. And this may be so; but Stephen’s favorite cousin, Annie Evans, who had long been ill, died shortly before “Gentle Annie” was composed, and Martha Morse, who went with Stephen to see Annie, told her children in after years that Annie Evans was the subject of the song. This seems most likely to the writer of these Chronicles for the Evans’ cousins were very close to the Foster family and were frequently mentioned by Morrison Foster in later years, with deep affection.