Mary Ellen Bamford (10 December 1857 – 21 May 1946) was an American author from Healdsburg, California.
Bamford was the daughter of Doctor William Bamford and Cornelia Elizabeth Rand, her parents were pioneer settlers. In the 1850s her future father had travelled across the plains whilst Cornelia Rand had arrived by California from New Hampshire. She had travelled around by sea via Cape Horn. Mary was educated in public schools in Oakland, California and then spent four years working as an assistant in the Oakland Free Public Library,[1] however writing remained her career. Bamford was an active prohibitionist and she was also secretary of the regional Woman's Baptist Foreign Missionary Society. She supplied books to a number of publishers including the American Baptist Publication Society.