Plans Underway to Establish Annual Portsmouth Founders' Day

Steps are being taken in Portsmouth to establish an annual celebration of the town’s founding on March 7, 1638, when a group of religious dissidents in Boston signed The Portsmouth Compact.

A priceless document held in the Rhode Island state archives, the Portsmouth Compact not only established the Aquidneck Island town, but also set a precedent. It was the first document to establish political and religious independence from England.

On Monday, the Portsmouth Town Council will vote to approve a request from the Portsmouth Historical Society to declare every March 7 “Portsmouth Founders’ Day” which will coincide with the transport and delivery of the time-weathered document to town for public display.

According to the resolution on the Town Council’s agenda, the document requires “special handling and arrangements to be brought to Portsmouth.”

The document is delivered from the state archives in Providence by way of police escort.

The town requested the document be transported to town for the inaugural Portsmouth Foudners’ Day earlier this month.

State Archivist R. Gweenn Stearn said in a Dec. 7 email that the state “would be pleased” to help celebrate.

The same arrangements put in place two years ago when the document was displayed for the town’s 375th anniversary celebrations would be used in March, Stearn said.