Draft Registration for John Nevins

Last summer we visited Ellicottville New York where my dad, Paul Ryan, worked as an administrator at the high school.  This is also where our Nevins family in America took root.  I can say this with fair confidence now that I have some new information about John Nevins, our mother's (Anne Flynn Ryan) great grandfather.  I don't think it's a small coincidence in the cosmic genealogy world that my father took a job in Ellicottville!

When I undertook a review of the Nevins/Ellicottville research, I found a document that shed new light and re-invigorated by research efforts.

This is a copy of a page from the Cattaragus County/Ellicottville Draft Registration for the US Civil War as of July 1 1863.  You will see a John Nevins listed at the very top of the page as a 30 year old single farmer born in Canada.  This may seem like a small piece of information, but for my research, it broke through a bit of a brick wall that I'd been banging my head against for several years.  I feel quite certain this is "our" John and it places him in Ellicottville in 1863.  I knew he married Julia Fisher in 1866 somewhere in New York, and now I feel quite certain they married in Cattaraugus County.  Placing a person in a location within a time period is a very critical piece of genealogical information. 

I do not believe John actually enlisted.  There were a number of draft registrations for Union soldiers--1863 was the first.  John appears to be a Class 1 which makes it seem as though he could have enlisted and served.  Each county had a quota of men to provide for service but it appears he was not called to enlist nor did he choose to enlist.  I may yet find that he did indeed serve but perhaps from another location.  We saw this with William S.  "Grampie" Brown (he enlisted from Wisconsin when his home was in Buffalo NY) and presume it is related to the enlistment bounties paid.  Counties or regions tried to "up the ante" with their required numbers by offering a bounty for enlistment and it was not uncommon for potential soldiers to shop around their services to obtain the better bounty money.  Substitutes could also be "bought" for a drafted solider so this is another possibility for John though I believe it unlikely that a farmer would be able to pay for a substitute.

I look forward to returning to Ellicottville and Cattaraugus County NY to continue my research into the Nevins family.