Here is a recent photo of China Connection -
H. B. Hutcheson was evidently some kind of a sportsman who raced horses that were raised at his father's stable in West Hempstead - horses with names like Lottie and Princess. When automobiles became the fashion in the 1900s, he turned to racing autos. On June 18th, 1905, he was arrested in Hempstead for driving a vehicle in excess of the village's "10 mph" speed limit. The Village of Hempstead that summer started an initiative to crack down on speeders and bicyclists who rode on the sidewalk, (though by the middle of the summer the effort peetered out since officers found it too hot to sit and wait at the speed traps and also because the Automobile Association of America posted warnings on the outskirts of town about speeding through the village). After appearing before the judge, he was fined $25, a hefty sum in 1905 considering that in today's dollars (using the inflation calculator), that would translate to $592. Perhaps he recovered at least some of that money that November when he won an auto race at the Empire City Race Track in Yonkers. The race was part on an event that showcased the Oldsmobile Runabout or "Curved Dash", which is considered the first mass produced automobile ever made (photo below from the Curved Dash Wiki entry).
Hutcheson won the one-mile race on his Oldsmobile in a whopping 2 minutes. (That's an average of 30 mph for the mathematically challenged).
It was at H. B. Hutcheson's home in West Hempstead that his father, Aubrey died in 1924, across the street from what used to be his magnificent estate. H. B Hutcheson did not survive much longer after that, as he died in 1927 at the age of 50.
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