Bohemia, Decade by Decade
The 1890s: Fire Volunteers & The Jan Hus Legacy
A Community Comes of Age
By the 1890s, the settlement finally had an official name — the post office designation of “Bohemia” had been secured in 1885 — though older labels like “Bohemiaville” and “Lakeland” still lingered on maps and documents. Whatever outsiders called it, the community spirit was stronger than ever. This decade was defined by two major achievements: the organized defense of their homes from fire, and the monumental defense of their heritage.
1893
The Birth of the Fire Department
With wooden barns full of curing tobacco leaves and homes heated by wood stoves, fire was a terrifying threat to the isolated village. Before 1893, residents relied on informal “bucket brigades,” summoned by the frantic tolling of church bells.
January 30, 1893: On this winter night, concerned neighbors gathered to solve the problem. With William Swanda serving as chairman and Louis Kautsky as secretary, a motion by Joseph Fischer was carried unanimously: the village would organize the Bohemia Hook & Ladder Company No. 1.
The First Responders: The charter roll reads like a census of the village’s founding families — Theodore Gross, Charles Sebek, Joseph Thuma, Louis Ruzicka, Vincent Mokracek, John Cerny, Louis Sadek, Joseph Marousek, Edward Hocker, Anton Swanda, and Charles Bartik among them. On May 19, 1893, the company elected its first Foreman (the office that would become Fire Chief): Joseph Novotny, a master carpenter who was just 22 years old. Having built many of the village’s homes and hotels by day, Novotny committed his nights to protecting them.
The “Apparatus”: The volunteers scraped together $375 (a significant sum) to purchase their first piece of equipment: a Ramsey hand-drawn hook and ladder wagon. Lacking horses, the men pulled the heavy wagon themselves through the sandy dirt roads to reach fires — a workout that made a young, fit volunteer force a necessity.
1894
The First Firehouse
The following year, the department built its first dedicated firehouse — a two-story wooden structure on the south side of Church Street at the corner of Walnut Avenue, then the busiest intersection in the village. The company held its first meeting there on September 4, 1894. The ground floor housed the apparatus; the second floor became a village gathering hall for meetings, band rehearsals, and celebrations. The building served as headquarters until the department moved to Pearl Street in 1962, and was itself destroyed by fire — a sad irony — in 1977.
September 26, 1893
The Jan Hus Monument
While they built for the future, the settlers never forgot their past.
A Symbol of Conscience: On September 26, 1893, the community gathered at the Bohemia Union Cemetery for a historic event: the dedication of a twelve-foot Vermont granite monument to Jan Hus, the Czech reformer burned at the stake in 1415. Carved holding the Utraquist chalice — the symbol of his stand for equality before God — Hus was, to the Freethinkers of Bohemia, a martyr for the right to follow one’s conscience.
A Feat of Generosity: A committee chaired by Joseph Jedlicka spent four years (1889–1893) raising the funds. Records place the cost between roughly $1,037 and $1,400 — an astronomical amount for a village of fewer than 1,000 farmers and cigar makers, with $327 contributed by the CSPS lodge and the Unity of Bohemian Ladies and the rest raised in small individual donations. What makes this even more remarkable is that 1893 was the year of a massive national economic depression (the Panic of 1893). That the villagers completed the project during such hard times is a testament to their fierce ethnic pride.
The Dedication Day: The unveiling was likely the largest Czech gathering in Long Island’s history to that point. Special trains ran from Long Island City to Sayville, carrying immigrants from Manhattan, Queens, and New Jersey. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people — three or four times the village’s population — marched in procession from the Sayville station to the cemetery, led by Jedlicka as marshal, beneath arches of flowers and the banners of the CSPS lodges.
Global Significance: Dedicated 22 years before the famous memorial in Prague’s Old Town Square (1915), the Bohemia monument is widely cited as the first standalone statue in the world erected to honor Jan Hus. The statue still watches over the Union Cemetery today.
Late 1890s
The “Buckeye” Boom
The 1890s also saw the cigar industry transition from kitchen tables to small backyard factories known as “Buckeyes.” By the end of the decade, the demand for Bohemia-made cigars in New York City was growing, setting the stage for the industrial explosion that would earn the village its title as the “Cigar Capital of Long Island” in the 1900s.