The Legacy of George Way

George Way, collector extraordinaire.
Pennsbury Manor

On February 2 this year, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter. We’ll know soon whether or not he was correct. But regardless of the weather, this is the time of year that we mark the anniversary of Pennsylvania’s founding. In March 1681 King Charles II of England granted land on the east coast of North America to William Penn as repayment for funds owed to his father. That land, which at the time was occupied primarily by the Lenape Indians (Delaware) and Swedish settlers, became Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey.

The original document by which the king conveyed the land is housed at the Pennsylvania State Archives, and a replica is displayed at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. The story of William Penn, his family, and his relationship with the Lenape is told at Pennsbury Manor in Morrisville, Bucks County. The Manor House at Pennsbury is a 20th-century reconstruction, but the furnishings that enrich the living spaces are authentic 17th- and early-18th-century pieces. Many of them came to Pennsbury from noted collector George Way (1950–2019).

Way was an expert collector and appraiser whose “day job” for many years was as a deli clerk in a Staten Island Pathmark supermarket. A quick Google search will provide an array of articles about a colorful and generous man who loved antiques. Below, staff from Pennsbury Manor share some of their memories of George Way and his significant contributions to Pennsbury Manor.

Douglas Miller, Site Administrator, Pennsbury Manor:

It all started when a colleague invited me to see a seating exhibit in the old visitor center of Pennsbury Manor in the early 1990s. Pennsbury’s director then, Alice Hemenway, introduced me to George Way, the owner of the seating collection. After one conversation, I was hooked.

George lived in the Silver Lake area of Staten Island and was a self-taught connoisseur of all things 17th century. As a youth he convinced his local parish to sell him a vintage chair. When the kids were riding skateboards, George was visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New-York Historical Society. He loved the recreated interiors at the historical society and aspired to have his own someday.

When Alice retired from Pennsbury Manor, I became her successor and blessedly inherited the institutional marriage to George. Warm, sharing, gregarious and quick-witted, he was as full of stories as he was of in-depth knowledge of the decorative arts of the 17th century. George’s nearly 40-year history with the site included some long-term loans that became core items in the everyday interpretation of William Penn’s reconstructed manor here in Bucks County.

My phone would ring and when I knew it was George, I would drop everything else to hear the tales of his latest acquisition. The stories of the hunt could outdo any fish story known to the best angler, and what was amazing was that they were all true. George shared how he actually dumpsterdove a 17th-century portrait from a curbside trash heap, took it home via bus, and had it restored — or, more recently, how he found a 17th-century sterling silver serving spoon at a local flea market. To me what remains remarkable was his passion to share his collection and the beauty of the 17th century with others.

William Penn frequently managed provincial government from his home, and a 1687 inventory indicates the presence of numerous high-style chairs. George Way’s loans and donations help Pennsbury to interpret these activities and Penn’s social status.
Pennsbury Manor

Todd Galle, Curator, Pennsbury Manor:

The first time I met George Way, I was working at the Commonwealth Conservation Center on a crew that had object transportation as a job duty, sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s. This was for an exhibit at Pennsbury Manor on the ruling Stuart family, and George was loaning us some 15 or so 17th-century portraits. I remember some were Van Dykes. We had premade wooden crates from his measurements, which worked — it often doesn’t. We went up to get the paperwork signed, and there were large yellow rectangles all over the rooms where the portraits had been hanging. Here he had repainted his apartment, but didn’t take anything down, just painted around it.

He used to think it was hysterically funny that we would wear cotton gloves when packing objects, while he was lounging in a 1685 daybed or a caned chair. “What’s the point?” was his constant question.

We were working on a silver exhibit with George for one Charter Day and went up to Staten Island to pack things up, but he couldn’t find the Dutch silver spoons he had selected. A search was conducted. They were finally discovered in a bible box, and George said, “So that’s where they are!” We took that to mean the spoons, but when he turned around, we saw he was referring to a bunch of bananas. The spoons in one hand, bananas in the other. I still don’t know which he was happier to discover.

When he visited Pennsbury, we’d tour the Manor House, and he’d chat to his loaned objects. He’d also often have a list of 17th-century furniture manufacturers that we’d hunt. This became so regular I eventually went down and tagged every chair that had a maker’s stamp. It made it much easier on our knees, rather than crawling on the oak floors. There is an upholstered wing chair in the Manor, which according to George has a twin in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. He always wanted us to pull up the upholstery to see if the same maker’s initials were present. We never found out.

Finally, in his last few years he apparently discovered eBay and would spend his days looking through the offerings. He was successful at finding misidentified period items and buying them for far less than their worth. He would call to inform us of all his successes every two to three weeks, explain what he had acquired, and always ended his listings with a variant of “Right as Rain.”

Way’s one-bedroom apartment in Staten Island was described in a 1991 interview as housing “an English castle’s worth of furnishings,” including “40 old master portraits, two banquet tables, 38 Charles II and William and Mary chairs, a dozen Jacobean chests and cupboards, eight Bible boxes and a 9-foot-high Elizabethan canopy bed.”
Pennsbury Manor

Douglas Miller:

Pennsbury Manor has received a generous bequest from George Way’s estate. He always told me that anything on loan to the site would stay here. As I walk through the great hall of the Manor House, I frequently see the period oil painting of Charles II watching me, because of George. Charles’ portrait is but one of many gifts that came to Pennsbury through George’s estate. In the years that he devoted to us as a friend and benefactor, Pennsbury has served over three-quarters of a million guests. Part of the 17th century that they’ve observed and explored was thanks to his sharing nature.

On my last visit to his home, he served our curator, Todd Galle, and me tea in original 17th-century sterling caudle cups and snacks on period Delft plates. The mischievous George not only wanted to share his collections but also get a rise out of us. As we visited, an original Van Dyke looked on, and in the next room was his 9-foot-high Elizabethan canopy bed, once lent to honeymooners who could not afford a trip to England.

As George shared information about a 17th-century spoon exhibit that he had done with Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz, New York, and a pending exhibit recreating a period interior for the New York State Museum, both Todd and I took in the day, including the company and being surrounded by one of the finest collections of 17th-century decorative arts in the country. We both knew that we were blessed with the opportunity and, more importantly, with the man himself.

Today, you can see a bit of George in the interiors of the Manor House where his donation continues to give life and substance to Penn’s recreated home here in Pennsylvania.

Amy Killpatrick Fox is a museum educator in PHMC’s Bureau of Historic Sites & Museums. She writes a weekly blog also called Trailheads at patrailheads.blogspot.com.