BY TED SHOCKLEY, Eastern Shore Post —
H. Furlong Baldwin, the genteel but uncompromisingly forthright national banking leader who was the 11th generation of his family to live in Northampton County, died Saturday, Dec. 7, at Eyre Hall, his estate near Eastville, famous for being among the best-preserved colonial homes in Virginia.
He was 92 and died of complications from multiple myeloma, The Sun newspaper of Baltimore reported.
Baldwin was born to privilege but used a hard-driving style, an innate talent for finance, and a skill for deal-making to become chief executive of Mercantile Bankshares Corp. and, at one time, one of the most influential people in Maryland.
His career was as unique as his name. He was board chairman of Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange. He served on the board of Johns Hopkins University and as board chair for the Johns Hopkins hospital and health system.
A master fundraiser, he once solicited $40 million in public and private money to save the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
But from the early 1970s until his retirement in 2001, he would leave Baltimore on weekends in a private plane and travel to his beloved family homeplace, which features gardens among the oldest in the country. He was the eighth generation of his family to live at Eyre Hall.
For a man who, in more recent years, maintained an understated public presence and sometimes could be found in Cape Charles, wearing shorts and sipping coffee at a sidewalk table, Baldwin’s social network was well-heeled, influential, and aristocratic.
Along the way, he conversed with England’s Queen Elizabeth II, former Israeli Prime Minister Yetzhak Rabin, baseball immortal Joe DiMaggio, and numerous U.S. presidents, according to a 2009 article in the Eastern Shore News.
When the Baltimore Orioles were for sale in the early 1990s, he nearly arranged an Ohio buyer for the baseball team before it was purchased by Peter Angelos, a moneyed Maryland attorney.
Baldwin was no fan of Angelos and unsuccessfully tried to stop his purchase of the team, The Sun reported.
Back on the Eastern Shore, however, Baldwin largely stayed out of the spotlight, worked to help the business environment, and had a reputation for being kindly and charming.
“He can be the ultimate authority figure or a guy who can make an 88-year-old lady feel like she’s Lady Di,” said Robert Neall, a former Maryland state senator and state delegate, about Baldwin in a 1994 profile in The Sun.
He always was happy to open Eyre Hall and its grounds to visitors — it has been a stop on the Garden Club of the Eastern Shore’s annual tour since 1941.
“Furlong unselfishly shared his beautiful, historic home and its exquisite gardens with thousands of visitors, many of whom returned year after year,” said Elizabeth Gordon, the Shore Garden Club president.
“He did so much for us and for his beloved Eastern Shore and his generous spirit and lively sense of humor will be greatly missed.”
On the Eastern Shore, where people like to discuss ancestral bona fides — or lack thereof — few could top Baldwin’s Shore-born lineage.
His mother’s side of the family came to the Eastern Shore in 1623, taking up patented land near Kiptopeke. The family has owned the Eyre Hall property since 1668 and the oldest part of the home dates to 1766.
“I started off life here,” Baldwin once told the Eastern Shore News, referencing Eyre Hall. He later moved to Maryland — his father’s native state — returning to Northampton for holidays and summers.
He graduated from a private Baltimore high school and was an All-America lacrosse player at Princeton, where he earned an undergraduate degree.
He served in the U.S. Marines from 1954 to 1956 and afterward started a job at Mercantile Bank, working as a teller and in the loan department.
After 18 months, “they had some cards made and said, ‘Go get some business,’” he said in the Eastern Shore News interview.
He was named bank president at age 38 and later chairman and chief executive officer.
In Baltimore, he was known for his sometimes-brusque manner. Baldwin offered no apologies.
“I guess I would say the hours of the day are very precious, and I’m always in a hurry,” he said in an interview in The Sun.
“There’s so much time wasted in puffery.”
In retirement he and his son, S. Eyre Baldwin, worked in real-estate development, including the Cape Charles Yacht Center.
His son survives him, as does a daughter, Mary “Molly” Baldwin, of Massachusetts, and his companion of 37 years, Louise Hayman, The Sun reported.
Baldwin felt he knew what the Eastern Shore was missing — and he dedicated his retirement to filling a need.
“What the Eastern Shore is missing is a strong middle class because there are no commercial jobs,” he said in the Eastern Shore News interview.
“We have virtually no commercial development and no middle class. And you can’t have a democracy without a strong middle class. That is where we have missed the boat.”
