The Man Who Started It All
When we drive down Locust Avenue today, it’s hard to imagine that this land was once nothing but scrub oak and pine barrens, dismissed by most as uninhabitable. It took a visionary—and perhaps a bit of desperation—to see a future here. That visionary was Jan Vavra.
As one of the original three “Founding Fathers” of our hamlet (alongside Jan Kratochvil and Joseph Koula), Vavra’s influence was so profound that before we were “Bohemia,” and even before we were the “New Village of Tabor,” locals simply called the settlement “Vavratown.”
From Street Musicians to Landowners
In 1854, three couples arrived in New York City, refugees from the failed 1848 revolutions against autocratic rule in what is now the Czech Republic. Jan and Barbara Vavra, Jan and Cathrine Kratochvil, and Joseph Koula and his wife came seeking a new life of freedom. But New York City was unforgiving; work was scarce, and the men resorted to working as street musicians just to survive.
It was a health crisis, not just economics, that changed the course of our history. In 1855, Jan Vavra fell ill. His doctor’s prescription was simple but life-altering: move to the country.
Through an agent, Vavra purchased five acres of land from the farm of Alexander Wallis, about 50 miles east of the city. He bought the land sight unseen.
The Hardship of the Early Years
The reality of their purchase was harsh. When they arrived in what was then “Lakeland,” the ground was covered in soot from recent forest fires, making the scrub oak and dwarf pine look even more inhospitable.
Despite the charred landscape, they stayed. The division of labor was strict: Joseph Koula, a carpenter, built the first small homes (the Vavra homestead was built on Locust Avenue), while the others felled trees and dug the sandy soil.
When money ran out, Vavra and the others walked miles to the estate of Colonel William Ludlow in Oakdale, securing work for just 50 cents a day. They would walk to Oakdale before sunrise, labor all day, and walk back in the dark, using pitch-pine torches to light their way home through the woods.
A Community Takes Root
Life in the settlement was difficult. Joseph Koula and his wife eventually moved to Boston, leaving the Vavra and Kratochvil families as the true anchors of the settlement. On April 1, 1858, the community celebrated its first birth: Charles Peter Kratochvil.
Slowly, the village grew. By 1859, 11 new couples had arrived. A one-room schoolhouse opened in 1867, costing $600 to build, where the teacher earned an annual salary of just $180.
A Legacy That Stuck
While the name “Vavratown” eventually gave way to “Tabor,” the community finally found its permanent identity in 1885. In a town meeting, residents decided to name the village “Bohemia” to honor their homeland, and Joseph Nohowec was named the first postmaster.
Next time you pass Locust Avenue, remember Jan Vavra—the musician who put down the instrument, picked up an axe, and built a village on doctor’s orders.