The mounting of the rear wheel the opposite way was purely accidental (it was early

)
Regarding the left drive topic, this definition is more for my benefit than anyone else's as I've never considered the concept - sounds pretty cool.
"Left-side-drive
This configuration consists of a left crank arm with a spider and chainring, and a right crank arm without a spider. This is exactly the opposite of a normal configuration. The special crankset must also be paired with a rear hub that can be driven from the left side. These hubs typically have left hand threads for a special freewheel, which is also threaded left hand and ratchets the opposite direction of a normal freewheel. If the freewheel and hub were threaded with right hand threads, the torque applied by pedaling would loosen and unthread the freewheel from the hub.
Left-side-drive is sometimes done with a fixed gear drivetrain. Because a correctly installed track cog can not be loosened from the hub no matter which way torque is applied, it can be used for left-side drive without requiring special left hand threaded parts.
Note that a normal right-side-drive crankset can not be installed backwards to create a left-side-drive bicycle because the threaded pedal holes at the end of the crank arms would be backwards of normal. Even though some kinds of pedals could simply be installed on the wrong sides to get around this issue, precession would tend to loosen them over time, causing the pedals to become detached and/or damaging the pedal threading in the crank arms."