PORTSMOUTH — There are not many places where you can spend a Friday morning staring at a piece of paper that helped invent a town.

But that’s what happened March 6 inside Portsmouth Town Hall, where a crowd gathered for the annual Founders Day celebration — centered around a document that is, depending on how you look at it, either 388 years old or technically one year younger because calendars were confusing in the 17th century.

The star of the show was the Portsmouth Compact, signed March 7, 1638 by a band of religious dissenters determined to form their own government somewhere far from the people who had just banished them.

For two hours, the document rested under careful watch after being transported from the Rhode Island State Archives and Public Records Administration in Providence. Nearby, the town’s copy of the United States Declaration of Independence was also on display.

Rebecca Sattel, vice president of the Portsmouth Historical Society and the event’s emcee, welcomed visitors and marked the anniversary. “This is the 388th year since the compact was signed in Boston,” she said, as members of the Newport Artillery Company stood nearby in uniform.

Sattel also credited Town Clerk Jennifer West and Ashley Selima, director of the state archives, for organizing the transfer of the fragile document.

But before the history lesson began, Sattel acknowledged someone who was deeply missed.

“A big absence today is Jim Garman, who passed away last week,” she said.

Garman, Portsmouth’s beloved town historian, died Feb. 22 at age 87. In years past, he delivered the keynote lecture at Founders Day.

“Jim was a very active member in the historical society. He served as president and board member,” Sattel said, adding that he helped bring Butts Hill Fort “back to life.”

“We will miss him greatly.”

Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore spoke about the significance of the document resting a few feet away.

“This is Americana at its finest,” Amore said.

He also reflected on Garman’s influence. “Every moment I spent with him, I learned something,” Amore said. “Every time I spoke to him, he exuded a love for this community.”

Amore said he was thrilled the archives could bring the document back to Portsmouth, noting that the compact represents something larger than one town.

“There was a direct connection” between the Portsmouth Compact and later American founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, “first in its religious freedom roots, and also its self-government roots.”

“They got here because they wanted religious freedom,” Amore said.

‘Big shoes to fill’

Local historian Stephen Luce then took on the task usually reserved for Garman.

“Jim Garman has some big shoes to fill,” Luce began.

He noted that Garman’s life was framed by two major New England storms. “He told me a few times how he was born right before the Hurricane of 1938, and he passed away 12 days ago — the day the great blizzard started.”

Luce said the compact was likely written in Boston, probably at the home of colonial leader William Coddington, and most likely authored by John Clarke.

The settlers had been caught up in a religious dispute in the Massachusetts Bay Colony involving Anne Hutchinson. After she was banished, supporters considered relocating elsewhere before consulting another exile, Roger Williams.

Williams suggested Rhode Island and negotiated with the Narragansett tribe for the settlers to move to Aquidneck Island.

Portsmouth or Pocasset?

Interestingly, Luce noted, the compact never mentions the name Portsmouth. At the time, the settlement was known as Pocasset. “They just knew they wanted to be a ‘body politic’ and settle somewhere,” Luce said.

The name Portsmouth didn’t appear until around 1639 or 1640.

Still, the 1638 document marks the moment when a group of settlers declared they would govern themselves — which is why, once a year, Portsmouth brings the paper home.