George Harrison Freedley (sometimes incorrectly spelled “Freedly”) was born in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1881, the year he was first listed in the Philadelphia city directories as a partner of J. K. Freedley and Sons, a marble quarry owned by his father. He earned a Master of Arts at Penn in 1884 and became an architect. Freedley was also a painter and studied with Rae Sloan Bredin (1881–1933) in New Hope, Pennsylvania. His daughter Elizabeth Freedley (1891–1988) became an artist and specialized in painting landscapes of Bucks County.