error installing from source on Mac OSX: _FMDisposeFontFamilyIterator (?)

After attempting to install matplotlib-0.87.5 from source on an intel
mac (OS X 10.4.7), I get an error when importing the pylab module.
This appears to be the same error reported in:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=30574221&forum_id=33405

My attempt was with freetype-2.2.1 and Python 2.4.3.

The error message is:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/font_manager.py
     37 import matplotlib
     38 from matplotlib import afm
---> 39 from matplotlib import ft2font
     40 from matplotlib import rcParams, get_data_path, get_home, get_configdir
     41

ImportError: Failure linking new module:
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages/matplotlib/ft2font.so:
Symbol not found: _FMDisposeFontFamilyIterator
  Referenced from: /usr/local/lib/libfreetype.6.dylib
  Expected in: flat namespace

I've done a bit of sleuthing but haven't found anything very helpful.
If anyone has any insight as to what is causing the error, or even
better how to fix it, I would appreciate it. Let me know if there is
any other helpful information I can provide.

Many thanks,

-Jonathan