When I undertook a review of the Nevins/Ellicottville research, I found a document that shed new light and re-invigorated by research efforts.
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 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. OK, done with the history lesson for this post.
On to the Fishers. My attention to Ellicottville Nevins must also include the Fishers. Julia Fisher Nevins had a brother Christopher who also lived in the Ellicottville area. I was reviewing holes in my research and noticed that his family needed some attention from me. Christopher had 6 children and I decided to concentrate on the males since it's a little easier to track them down. This decision led me to a very odd, sad story that I thought you'd like to hear.
Christopher's oldest son Mathew married Catherine Simons and had a child Eveline May born April 22 1896 in Ellicottville according to church records. This family lived in Ohio in the 1900 census and I was unable to find them after that which was weird because of the young child and their fairly easy names. I couldn't let that go and kept looking finally finding the following:
