PORTSMOUTH — The Portsmouth Compact is coming back to town on the anniversary of its founding on March 7, 1638.

The document, which established Portsmouth’s founding 378 years ago, is returning at the request of the Portsmouth Historical Society and with the support of the Portsmouth Town Council. March 7 was recently proclaimed “Portsmouth Founders’ Day” by the town as an annual observance of Portsmouth’s roots to the past.

The public is invited to view the document up close from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Monday, March 7, at Portsmouth Town Hall, 2200 East Main Road. Jim Garman, town historian and president of the Portsmouth Historical Society, will present a brief introduction to the Compact, its history and significance, at 11:30 a.m.

Mr. Garman will also lecture on the early days of Portsmouth from 6:30-7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 9, at the Portsmouth Free Public Library, 2658 East Main Road.

Seating is limited for the event, so reserve a seat with the library.

Portsmouth Compact 101

“Welcome to Portsmouth — Founded on the Compact of 1638.” We go by these signs often and many are not clear exactly what the phrase means. The background:

The Massachusetts Bay colony was a theocracy — a colony where the religious and political leaders were both the clergy.

Anne Hutchinson and a number of her followers challenged this authority of the ministers and were banished from the colony. On March 7, 1638, these followers gathered and signed an agreement (probably in Boston) in which they agreed to create a “bodie politick,” based on Christian principles — a theocratic settlement governed by their own interpretation of the Scriptures, without reference to any earthly sovereign.

Twenty-three men signed the Compact and at that same meeting they elected William Coddington as their leader.

After explorations they decided, with the assistance and encouragement of Roger Williams, to purchase Aquidneck Island from the Narragansett Indians.

Thus the Portsmouth Compact became the basis of their government, established in the wilderness and dedicated to religious freedom. (More about the Portsmouth Compact, as told by Mr. Garman, can be found here.)

In 2013, this historic document was brought to Portsmouth from the State Archives in Providence to be put on public display as part of the town’s 375th Anniversary celebration.

This was the first time on record that the actual 1638 document had been in Portsmouth since it was removed, along with the early town meeting records, by William Coddington and others when they moved south and founded Newport in 1639.