Colonel Joel Stone was born in Guilford, Connecticut in 1748 to Stephen and Rebecca Bishop Stone. When Joel was two years old the family moved to the growing town of Litchfield, Connecticut, where his father began a prosperous farm. Joel assisted his father on the family farm until the age of twenty-one, when he struck out on his own to begin a career as a merchant, and entered into a partnership with a general merchant in Woodbury, near Litchfield. In 1775 Joel was suspected of unfriendliness to the continental party, and was requested to appear before a Committee, where he was accused of having supplied Loyalists with provisions, and with having supported and assisted the British prisoners confined in Connecticut. Joel was able to escape severe examination, but in 1776 after remaining loyal to the British King by refusing to fight or produce a substitute in the Continental Army, Joel fled to New York, which was then in possession of the British. He served in the British force as a volunteer in 1776, and the following year received a Captain’s commission to recruit a company of able-bodied men for the King’s service. While completing his mission he was captured by the Continental Army and taken to Fairfield under the threat of being hanged as a traitor. Able to escape in 1778, Joel made his way back to Long Island where he was married to the daughter of an English sea-captain, and the couple had two sons and a daughter. In 1783 when the British forces evacuated New York he thought it time to leave the new republic. In 1783 he set sail for England with the double purpose of trying to recover a legacy left to his wife by an uncle who had been in the East India Company’s service, and of presenting his claim for compensation for his losses to the British Government. After two years he was granted a position as a military pensioner, with the rank of Captain, and forty pounds a year. In 1786 he sailed for Canada where he was joined by his wife and children. In 1792 to 1793 he removed to the Gananoque River where he began a settlement at what is today the town of Gananoque, Ontario. He defended the town and area during the War of 1812, and died there in November of 1833.

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