diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 8d64a6b..ada8b0c 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@ option(ENABLE_THREADING               "Enable partial threading support."
 option(OVERRIDE_GET_RANDOM_SEED       "Override json_c_get_random_seed() with custom code."   OFF)
 option(DISABLE_EXTRA_LIBS             "Avoid linking against extra libraries, such as libbsd." OFF)
 option(DISABLE_JSON_POINTER           "Disable JSON pointer (RFC6901) support."               OFF)
+option(NEWLOCALE_NEEDS_FREELOCALE     "Work around newlocale bugs in old FreeBSD by calling freelocale"  OFF)
 
 
 if (UNIX OR MINGW OR CYGWIN)
diff --git a/cmake/config.h.in b/cmake/config.h.in
index be0202a..1e6359d 100644
--- a/cmake/config.h.in
+++ b/cmake/config.h.in
@@ -137,6 +137,9 @@
 /* Define to 1 if you have the `uselocale' function. */
 #cmakedefine HAVE_USELOCALE
 
+/* Define to 1 if newlocale() needs freelocale() called on it's `base` argument */
+#cmakedefine NEWLOCALE_NEEDS_FREELOCALE
+
 /* Define to 1 if you have the `vasprintf' function. */
 #cmakedefine HAVE_VASPRINTF
 
diff --git a/json_tokener.c b/json_tokener.c
index 25f41dc..9403f85 100644
--- a/json_tokener.c
+++ b/json_tokener.c
@@ -344,6 +344,11 @@ struct json_object *json_tokener_parse_ex(struct json_tokener *tok, const char *
 			freelocale(duploc);
 			return NULL;
 		}
+#ifdef NEWLOCALE_NEEDS_FREELOCALE
+		// Older versions of FreeBSD (<12.4) don't free the locale
+		// passed to newlocale(), so do it here
+		freelocale(duploc);
+#endif
 		uselocale(newloc);
 	}
 #elif defined(HAVE_SETLOCALE)