Jens Nielson (26 April 1821 – 1906) was a prominent Mormon pioneer, a community leader, and a settler of the western United States.
Nielson was one of the Mormon handcart pioneers that traveled across the plains to Salt Lake City under captain James G. Willie.
After serving as a missionary in his native Laaland, Nielson left Denmark with his wife Elsie, their five-year-old son, and a young Mortensen girl named Bodil, for whom they assumed responsibility to bring to Utah Territory.
It appears that Nielson had resources enough to have obtained supplies and traveled west early enough to beat the winter, but instead he joined the handcart company led by captain Willie.
Biographer Albert Lyman described the pathetic scene: "In the fury of those storms which raged around them, [Jens] and his faithful wife toiled through the frozen snow till his feet were shapeless and useless with frost—he could walk no farther.
One of Nielson's houses, in Bluff, still remains and was listed in 1982 on the National Register of Historic Places in San Juan County.