H. Furlong Baldwin, whose disciplined and cautious management of the old Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust Co. kept his bank steady and independent, died of complications of multiple myeloma Saturday at his home, Eyre Hall, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. He was 92.
“He led a bank you could trust,” said former U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski. “As a chief executive he believed in civic engagement. He was a major force for Johns Hopkins and helped save the Baltimore Symphony at a difficult time.”
“He was a business icon, a superlative leader and a civic treasure. He was a strong judge of people and could match the individuals together in an excellent way,” said Robert R. Neall, former Anne Arundel County executive.
Born in Baltimore and raised in Old Goucher on Charles Street, the son of Henry du Pont Baldwin and Margaret Eyre Taylor, he attended the Calvert and Gilman schools before graduating from Princeton University, where he was an All-American lacrosse player. He was known as “Baldy” and also competed on the Mount Washington Club’s team.
In July 1956 he took a job counting checks in the proof and collections department at Mercantile-Safe Deposit and Trust Co.
“I just walked in and said, ‘I am coming out of the Marine Corps, and I need a job,’” he told The Sun in 2001 for an article about his retirement. “The head of the banking division offered me a job and I accepted it,” Mr. Baldwin said. “I really didn’t have a clue what a bank did. I didn’t know what a debit and credit meant. I knew I had to get a job.”
Mr. Baldwin began as a bank teller, worked in the loan cage and posted the general ledger – a mammoth, canvas-covered book about 2-feet high and a foot-and-a-half wide.
“You had pen and ink, and God bless you if you made a blur or a spill,” he said. “It was a sacred book that you opened. … You stood at a desk … and you posted it by hand.”
He became a director of Mercantile-Safe in 1968 and at age 38, was named president of the bank. He was later president and chief executive of the parent company, Mercantile Bankshares Corp. He was also chairman and chief executive officer of the lead bank.
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Mr. Baldwin immediately put his stamp on the bank which had a considerable trust department. But with the blessing of William E. McGuirk Jr., the parent company’s chairman, Mr. Baldwin pushed the bank into commercial lending.
“Homegrown Mercantile dominated the commercial lending business in a manner that seems hard to imagine today,” said an article in The Baltimore Sun in 2020, when he was named to The Sun’s Business and Civic Hall of Fame.
“But under Mr. Baldwin, it also evolved into a bank holding company, acquiring much smaller banks across the state … . But rather than turn these small institutions into regional clones, he gave them independence with their own governing boards…,” the article said.
Friends recalled Mr. Baldwin as a tall and imposing figure, brimming with self-confidence, toughness and reliability.
“He was not arrogant,” said George Johnston, a former legal counsel. “It was just the way he was.”
“Furlong Baldwin was a force of nature and a titan of the banking and investment industries,” said Mark Letzer, former president and CEO of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, where a library is named for Mr. Baldwin.
“Baldy was passionate about history,” Mr. Letzer said. “He was strong but spoke softly; you always knew where you stood.”
On weekends, Mr. Baldwin boarded a charter plane to fly to his family’s estate in Cheriton, Virginia. Eyre Hall, the home, was Mr. Baldwin’s sanctuary, where he hunted geese and sailed.
He was a past chair of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s board of trustees. He sat on the boards of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Stratford Hall. He helped raise funds for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Walters Art Museum.
His daughter, Mary “Molly” Baldwin said, “My father was a generous man. He believed that to whom much is given, much is expected.”
Survivors include his companion of 37 years, Louise Hayman; a son, Severn Eyre Baldwin of Cheriton, Virginia; a daughter, Mary “Molly” Baldwin of Chelsea, Massachusetts; and a granddaughter.
Funeral plans are pending.
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