[ft] running make fails

[Jeffry Killen]

system: FreeBSD 10.1
Running /usr/local/bin/make (this make is GNU make) under sh

/usr/local/lib/libz.a: could not read symbols: Bad value
cc: error: linker command failed with exit code 1 (use -v to see  
invocation)
config.mk:55: recipe for target '/usr/local/freetype-2.5.5/objs/ 
libfreetype.la' failed
make: *** [/usr/local/freetype-2.5.5/objs/libfreetype.la] Error 1

Any explanations and what might be done about it?

Thanks for time and attention:
JK