Horace Nelson

Horace Aloysius Nelson (February 16, 1878 – 1962)[1] was a Penobscot political leader and the father of dancer and actress Molly Spotted Elk (born Mary Alice Nelson).[2]

Nelson was born to Peter "Dindy" Nelson and Mary Francis Mitchell Nelson on Indian Island, a Penobscot reservation near Old Town, Maine, U.S., where he lived his entire life with the exception of a few years during college. He attended Old Town High School and, at age 22, was the second Penobscot to graduate (after baseball player Louis Sockalexis).[1] He was the first to study at Dartmouth College,[3] graduating around 1904.[4]

Nelson served as the Penobscot Representative in the Maine Legislature from 1921 to 1922 and as the Penobscot governor from 1939 to 1941.[1] In addition to trapping, fishing, and gathering sweet-grass for his wife, Philomene Saulis Nelson (1888–1977), to make baskets from,[4][5] which were standard tasks for Penobscot men, Nelson also contributed to the family household by keeping a vegetable garden and he had a variety of paid jobs such as ferry master to Indian Island, surveyor, security guard, and laborer working for a shipbuilder and a railroad company. Music was his hobby and he occasionally played for the Penobscot Indian Band and encouraged his children to play music.[1]

Sources
  1. McBride, Bunny (1997). Molly Spotted Elk: A Penobscot in Paris. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 14–19, 26–32, 285, 355. ISBN 978-0-8061-2989-1.
  2. "Molly Spotted Elk, From Poverty in Old Town, Maine, to Fame in Paris — and Back". New England Historical Society. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
  3. "Mary Alice Nelson Archambaud (Molly Spotted Elk)". Penobscot: Culture & History of the Nation. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
  4. Henderson, James S., ed. (2012). "Spotted Elk, Molly". Maine: An Encyclopedia. Harpswell, ME: Publius Research. Retrieved November 27, 2016.
  5. Prins, Harald E.L.; McBride, Bunny (2007), "Asticou's Island Domain: Wanbanaki Peoples at Mount Desert Island 1500–2000" (PDF), Acadia National Park Ethnographic Overview & Assessment, Volume 2 (2nd printing ed.), The Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, Maine and Northeast Region Ethnography Program, National Park Service, archived from the original (PDF) on June 23, 2016, retrieved November 28, 2016


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