December 15, 2005 Issue                                                              

©2005 The Chestnut Hill Local

Visitors didn’t stand a “ghost of a chance”
George G. Meade Easby, a one-of-a-kind Hiller
by LEN LEAR

George Gordon Meade Easby, whose house on Mermaid Lane is a virtual museum, was the great grandson of General George Gordon Meade, who led the Union forces at the Battle of Gettysburg. )

I have interviewed thousands of people over 38 years as a full time journalist, but none of them stands out in my mind more than George Gordon Meade Easby. The long-time Chestnut Hill resident, who died last week at age 87 at Keystone Hospice in Wyndmoor, had a life that was as fascinating, if not more so, than some of the characters he portrayed as a stage and Hollywood actor many years ago. (He appeared in Cape Cod summer theater with the fabled Gertrude Lawrence 50 years ago and spent time in Hollywood as both an actor and producer.)

I was introduced to Easby seven years ago by the then-editor of the Chestnut Hill Local, Marie Jones. A strong believer in paranormal phenomena and reincarnation, Jones told me about Easby’s stone mansion high above Mermaid Lane (he called it “Baleroy”), which was constructed in 1911 to be a sort of family museum.

Easby’s mother was a descendant of Nicholas Waln, who came to Philadelphia in 1683 with William Penn aboard the ship Welcome and was later given the area now known as Frankford. Easby was also a descendant of seven signers of the Declaration of Independence, and his great-grandfather was Gen. George Gordon Meade, the Union Army commander at the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War.

Easby inherited and collected more than 100,000 antiques and personal items, including those belonging to Gen. George Gordon Meade, many of which had been in his family for centuries. Many experts considered it the most important private collection of antiques in the country. Easby curated the collection, put many of the items in showcases with identifying markers and even had groups of schoolchildren make regular pilgrimages to his house/museum.

When I finally met Easby, he proudly showed me a watch, snuff box and chair which he said has belonged to Napoleon Boneparte. He also showed me a clock that had belonged to Marie Antoinette, a desk belonging to Gen. Meade and silver flatware owned by signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Easby also told me he had loaned many pieces from his collection to both the White House and U.S. State Department for its diplomatic reception rooms. In fact, Easby worked for the State Department for 25 years, and his employer actually referred to the antiques they borrowed from him as “The Baleroy Collection.” He said some of his pieces were also housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The main reason Marie Jones wanted me to meet Easby, however, was not his spectacular collection of antiques and family memorabilia but rather to see the ghosts (that’s right, ghosts) that were allegedly occupying his house. “There is no doubt that we have ghosts inhabiting the house. We have had several seances here,” Easby told me. “In one of them, the medium (the late Judith Richardson Haimes) told me she believed the spirits of the great English poet, John Milton, and Napoleon’s field marshal, Michel Ney, were in my house because they wanted to be close to their possessions. And there are others whose possessions are here. I have seen and heard them myself.” (About the time of our visit to see Easby, Marie Jones told me she was trying to hire Ms. Haimes to run a seance in her Ardleigh Street home, but she later said it could not be arranged because Ms. Haimes had moved to Florida.)

Virginia Burke and Jeanette Fairorth visited Easby’s mansion overlooking Mermaid Lane expecting to see the ghosts that Easby often talked about. (Photo by Len Lear)

Easby, who had no siblings and no children, even showed me an article from a 1976 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine about him and his house. The article contained a photo of what appeared to be an apparition in the shape of a person. It was not completely clear, however, and could have been interpreted another way by a skeptic.

When Marie and I visited Easby, we were accompanied by my wife; Chuck Kline, a retired Philadelphia policeman and photographer who had taken the “ghost” picture in the Inquirer; Chuck’s wife, Lee, a psychic; and Virginia Burke, a friend of the Klines. We all posed lots of questions for Easby, which were answered by him and his companion, Robert P. Trigoyen. We also met Easby’s pet yellow-cheeked Amazon talking parrot, Toby.

“It’s not unusual for us to hear noises in the house that have no rational explanation,” said the dapper-looking, elegant Easby, a graduate of Chestnut Hill Academy who also studied illustration for five years at the Philadelphia College of Art and became a syndicated cartoonist after World War II. (His cartoon, Air Power Frankenstein, which showed the U.S. defeating Germany, was given a presidential citation by President Franklin Roosevelt.) “Those noises come from the ghosts, which are friendly ghosts and are nothing to fear.”

Chuck Kline proceeded to take many photos in many rooms that night, but when he had them developed, there were no ghosts to be seen.

Although I saw no ghosts, I do have a picture permanently imbedded in my mind of George Gordon Meade Easby, a truly unique Chestnut Hill original who is not likely to be forgotten by anyone who ever knew him.