British seaman Joseph William Ellender was shipwrecked off the coast of Iceland in 1866 and rescued by a schooner bound for Galveston. He settled in Cedar Bayou and married Nancy Lavinia Prather in 1868. They had ten children. A master Mason, Ellender served as Worshipful Master of Cedar Bayou Lodge three times. He organized the Cedar Bayou Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star in 1884 and was Worthy Grand Patron of Texas in 1889.