Clarence Gray Dinsmore (1847-1905)

He was born in New York City. He was a motor racing enthusiast and between 1901 and 1905 he bought a fleet of Mercedes racing cars driven by Wilhelm Werner and Camille Jenatzy. He spent most of his time in Europe, at his house on the Rue Marceau in Paris, on the French Riviera, in London or Houlgate. He was frequently seen with Robert Katzenstein, the Frankfurt banker and sportsman who made headlines in 1901 when he drove his car backwards for the last thirty kilometres of the Paris-Berlin rally, as a result of his gears having got stuck. Dinsmore suffered from impaired health for years and died of pneumonia in 1905 while staying as a guest at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. He married Kate Hall Jerome but they died without children.