Horace Nelson (1878–1962) was a Penobscot political leader and the father of Molly Spotted Elk.
Nelson studied for a time at Dartmouth College. He served as the Penobscot Representative in the Maine Legislature 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 where the Penobscot Reservation is located for a year.