John Godfrey Saxe I (June 2, 1816 – March 31, 1887) was an American poet known for his re-telling of the Indian parable "The Blind Men and the Elephant",[1] which introduced the story to a western audience.

In 1841, he married Sophia Newell Sollace, a sister of a Middlebury classmate, with whom he had six children, including John Theodore Saxe.

He was admitted to the Vermont bar in 1843 and tried to run a business with his dutiful and pious older brother, Charles Jewett Saxe.

Convinced extremists on both sides had pushed the nation into a fratricidal war, he composed "The Blind Man and The Elephant", his most famous poem.

Instead, the poet's son, John Theodore Saxe, took the reins of his brother's lumber firm and managed the family's finances.

In 1875, he suffered head injuries in a rail accident near Wheeling, West Virginia, from which he never fully recovered, and then over the next several years, his two other daughters, his eldest son, and daughter-in-law also died of tuberculosis.

Though a satirist, his poems written during more somber periods earned more recognition, including "Little Jerry the Miller", about his father's mill assistant; few of the satirical works which had made him famous are read today.

[6] According to Fred R. Shapiro, author of the Yale Book of Quotations, The Daily Cleveland Herald, in its issue of March 29, 1869, quotes Saxe as saying, "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.