Joel Bower[s]

JOEL BOWER[S] was born 20 Feb 1763 in Southampton, Hampshire, England. He was the son of Phineas Bower[s]. According to Joel's American Revolution pension papers, he immigrated to America with his father about 1768 at the age of five. Whether other family members accompanied Phineas and Joel is unknown.

Phineas and Joel settled on Long Island, and at the beginning of the Revolution moved to Orange County, NY. Joel enlisted into the Artificiers at New Windsor, NY in 1777. He was discharged from the service there in 1783 following a leg wound received in battle.

Following his return home to Orange County, Phineas and Joel moved north to New Town [now Elmira], then up to Havana in [now] Schuyler County. By 1812 Joel moved on to settle in Ontario County, New York where he began trading in salt to Canada.

In 1812 Joel was taken prisoner near Niagara by the British. He was held at the prison in York, Ontario, Canada for "more than two years." Are records available?

About 1832 Joel settled in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. He was in Indiana in 1839, but returned to Pickering that year to begin his application for a military pension. Joel was destitute, "with nothing but a bed of straw to lay upon, without food to subsist upon only as he is supplyed by the hand of charity. . .a perfect cripple unable to get 1/2 a mile from his humble cot."

I'd really like to find out more about JOEL BOWER[s], when he died, where he is buried, and whether or not he had a family in Pickering, etc.