Breedlove was born sometime around 1820 in Essex County, the son of James Davis, a white man, and Polly Breedlove, a free African American. Little is known of Breedlove’s early life. The 1850 census identifies him as a blacksmith and literate. With his wife, Susan Breedlove, the daughter of Cordelia Drake, he resided in the Tappahannock household of Henry Adams, next to the blacksmith shop of the elderly James Lewis, from whom Breedlove may have learned his trade. When Susan Breedlove died of typhoid fever in December 1857, they had at least two sons and one daughter, of whom only George W. Breedlove survived to adulthood. On December 9, 1858, Breedlove married Eliza Ann Davis, the daughter of a black man and a white woman and therefore also free. They had at least two sons and two daughters.