Horace Nelson was a Penobscot political leader and the father of Molly Spotted Elk

Molly Spotted Elk

Molly Spotted Elk was the stage name of Molly Dellis Nelson, a Native American actress and dancer who was born on November 17, 1903 in the Penobscot reservation in Maine and died on February 21, 1977....

.

Nelson studied for a time at Dartmouth University

Dartmouth University

Dartmouth University is a defunct institution in New Hampshire which existed from 1817 to 1819. It was the result of a thwarted attempt by the state legislature to make Dartmouth College, a private college, into a public university. The United States Supreme Court case that settled the matter,...

. He served as the Penobscot Representative in the Maine Legislature

Maine Legislature

The Maine Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maine. It is a bicameral body composed of the lower house Maine House of Representatives and the upper house Maine Senate...

 from 1921 to 1922 and as the Penobscot Governor from 1939 to 1941. The rest of his life he was involved in hunting, fishing and gathering sweet-grass for his wife to make baskets from. He also was the head of the ferry to Indian Island

Penobscot Indian Island Reservation

Penobscot Indian Island Reservation is an Indian reservation for the Penobscot tribe in Penobscot County, Maine, United States near Old Town. The population was 562 at the 2000 census. A small, uninhabited part of the reservation is in Aroostook County. The reservation is home to a small museum, as...

where the Penobscot Reservation is located for a year.

Sources

• McBride, Bunny. Molly Spotted Elk: Penobscot in Paris. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.