The Historic New England Wiscasset summer lecture series begins on Sunday, June 23 with Gentlemen Heroes – The American Field Service and Edward Carter Sortwell.

Historian and collector William Foley tells the story of the American volunteer ambulance corps in World War I and its local connection. The lecture begins at 3 p.m. in the Nickels-Sortwell House barn. Admission is $5 for Historic New England members and $10 for non-members. Registration is recommended. The barn entrance is on Federal Street. Big Barn Coffee is the sponsor of this lecture.

When war broke out in Europe in 1914, many Americans living in, or with ties to France felt strongly that we owed a debt of honor to the French for their support in the American Revolution. U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and former director of the U.S. Mint, A. Piatt Andrew, volunteered to work at the American Hospital in Paris and was assigned to the motor pool.

The number of casualties quickly exploded as modern war technology overwhelmed Napoleonic-era tactics.  With only a small number of motorized vehicles, the French ambulance service still relied on horse-drawn wagons.

Piatt Andrew skilfully navigated the political and military hierarchies of France, Britain and the U.S. to organize an independent volunteer ambulance corps that he called the American Field Service, or AFS. These energetic and brave young men, college students, businessmen, writers (including Ernest Hemingway), artists, academics, and others, drove Model T Fords fitted with French ambulance bodies that they assembled and repaired themselves.

They drove to and from the front wherever they were needed, night and day, carrying wounded soldiers over rutted, bombed out and muddy roads, frequently under fire. Wiscasset’s own Edward Carter Sortwell served in the AFS and died while in service in 1916.

Foley will share photos, letters and objects from his collection, which is the largest archive and collection of American Field Service material in the country. Mr. Foley served as consultant to the Musée National Coopération Franco-Américaine at the Chateau de Blerancourt, France.

The Foley Collection will form the foundation of the exhibition, "Before the Doughboys" coming to the Smithsonian Institution in 2014.

The remaining lectures in the series are:  

July 21:  Circle of Friends – Thomas Jefferson’s Correspondence with Women. Dr. Gerard Gawalt, retired Curator of Presidential Papers and Early American History Specialist at the Library of Congress will talk about his latest book, and what the correspondence of the man who is possibly our most enigmatic and contradictory founding father does and does not reveal.

August 4: Ellis Spear – Wiscasset Schoolteacher and the 20th Maine. Dr. Tom Desjardins, Historian for Maine’s Department of Conservation will tell the story of Ellis Spear, the Bowdoin graduate and Wiscasset school teacher who became Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s friend and second in command at Gettysburg.  Desjardins will talk about Spear's relationship with Chamberlain, and his life during and after the war.

September 15: Mildred G. Burrage, Painter and Preservationist.  Earle Shettleworth, director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission and Maine State Historian will discuss artist and historic preservationist Mildred G. Burrage, who studied art in France before World War I, met Monet at Giverny and spent her later years in Wiscasset. A passionate historic preservationist, she founded the Lincoln County Cultural and Historical Society with Frances Sortwell in 1954.

The Nickels-Sortwell House is open for tours Friday through Sunday. Tours are on the half hour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the last tour at 4 p.m. All tours are guided. Tours are free for Historic New England members and Wiscasset residents. Nonmember admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2.50 for children.  For more information and a full calendar of summer programs, call 207-882-7169 or visit www.historicnewengland.org.