Greg O’s Garage; Photographs from the James L. Breese Photo Albums
Denver photographer Mark Sink has forwarded snapshots from his great-grandfather James L. Breese's photo albums recently found in a second hand thrift store.
Greg O.
James L. Breese
James Lawrence Breese (1854-1934) was an American stockbroker and amateur photographer with passions for photography, art, automobiles, racing and architecture. Breese was a good friend of Willie K. Vanderbilt and was often at the same racing events as Vanderbilt, namely the Ormond-Daytona Automobile Races. Breese was also a commissioner on the first two Vanderbilt Cup Race Commissions.
Sydney Breese and B.L.M. Motor Cars
Inheriting the love of automobiles from his father, James Breese's son Harvard graduate Sydney, together with his friends, Yale grad Charles Lawrence and Andrew Moulton started the B.L.M. automobile company in 1906.
Their first effort was a race car built to compete in the 1906 American Elimination Trial for the Vanderbilt Cup Races. Unfortunately, a broken cylinder on the way to the race forced them out of contention.
Andrew Moulton (behind the steering wheel) and Charles Lawrence - Sydney's business partners pictured in a B.L.M. race car
The first year of operation (1906-1907) the B.L.M. Motor Car Co. 'factory' was 31-35 Delevan St., Brooklyn, NY. seen here with incomplete chassis to the right.
Detroit Public Library archives
The Photo Album
All following photos courtesy of Mark Sink
1908 Vanderbilt Cup Race photos
Seen on the Elison Ave. bridge, the #P45 A Knox racer, driven by Charles Basle, finished 6th in the 1908 Motor Parkway Sweepstakes.
B.L.M. photos
1911 Glidden Tour
Ormond Beach Florida 1905. James Breese 2nd from right.
Ormond 1905
James Breese and Walter Christie in Southampton 1905
At 2:17, James L. Breese can be seen at the extreme right of the 1904 Vanderbilt Cup Race film when driver Albert Clement Jr. was making his case to Vanderbilt that he had won the race. His protest failed and Clement finished second.
Comments
Great post. Do we know which route they took to Jacksonville being it was significantly more miles than a direct trip today?
This is really a treasure! The photos are very interesting, but the quality makes it difficult to identify all cars and events. It is however clear that the 1905 photo with James Breese and Walther Christie shows Breese at the wheel of his own Mercedes. What the 1905 event at Southampton was I still don’t know. The Mercedes however seems to be identical to the one with which Breese raced the 1904 Eagle Rock hill climb, but different from the one at Ormond Beach in 1905.
Of more interest to me is the page with the BLM racers, especially the photo on the right top of that page showing ‘Charlie’ and ‘Ray’ in Paris. The BLM they would produce indeed had an engine with French origin: the engine was bought from Mutel. Could they be test-driving a Mutel? Mutel cars are rare and thought to be produced only for the purpose of demonstration. Could this be such a car? A scan with a higher resolution would be much appreciated!
Arjejan, Regarding the Southhampton event, closest I could find was an economy run from Brooklyn to Southampton in June of 1905 which was sponsored by the L.I.A.C. Breese had his own machine shop in Southampton and that year built an auto from the ground up except for an Astor engine . Among the unusual components was the frame which was made of “armored wood”.
Hi Al, the experimental BLM was clearly different from the BLM, which would appear in 1906. According to the Standard Catalog by Beverly Rae Kimes the engine in that first car would have had 85 hp. If that was an Aster engine is unknown to me, but the maximum output I could find for 1905 Aster engines was 60 hp. In the 1906 BLM a 24 hp Mutel engine imported from France was used. Another remark about the experimental BLM: the pictures from the Breese album show the car after rebuilding in 1908 (written on the picture). The original car with flitch plate chassis can be seen on a photo in the Standard Catalog. After rebuilding in 1908 the car had apparently received a pressed steel chassis like the standard BLM.
I have three Brooklyn newspaper articles (June 7, 1905 Southampton preview and two June 11, 1905 Southampton result articles) of what might be the event mentioned in the above comments.