“Little Ella” was entered for copyright on December 13, 1853, by Firth, Pond, & Company. Foster arranged “Little Ella” with guitar accompaniment (copyright December 5, 1854), which introduced melodic changes that Foster had his publisher introduce retroactively into the piano-vocal version.

According to Evelyn Foster Mornweck’s The Chronicles of Stephen Foster’s Family, “Other songs that Stephen published in 1853 were ‘Old Memories’ and ‘Little Ella,’ neither of which became so popular as ‘Old Dog Tray.’ It is evident that most of his hard work that fall was put on the Social Orchestra.”