R.I. Colonial Charter to get new encasement system

PROVIDENCE – The Rhode Island Colonial Charter of 1663 will get a new, state-of-the-art encasement system, according to Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee and Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis.

“I am pleased that the most important document in our state’s history is going to be protected and conserved for generations,” Chafee said in a statement.

“The Colonial Charter was the first to establish separation of church and state, and became the inspiration for our Bill of Rights a century later. Preserving our historic resources demonstrates our commitment to preserving and protecting Rhode Island history. I commend the Secretary of State’s Office and the Rhode Island 1663 Colonial Charter Commission for their efforts to bring this project to fruition,” he added.

On Tuesday, ARTEX, a fine arts moving company, transported the Charter in an environmentally controlled vehicle to Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass., with a state police escort. ARTEX built a custom crate for packaging and transporting the Charter.

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“I am pleased to announce that Rhode Island’s Colonial Charter of 1663 will be housed within the same high-tech system used by the National Archives for the Charters of Freedom. It is imperative that we carefully preserve our Colonial Charter, which is our state’s most profound and historic document; a document which gave us the religious freedom we all enjoy today, and a document which defines our state’s unique heritage,” Mollis said in a statement.

Over the next two weeks, Northeast Document Conservation Center will remove the Charter from its current mounting, and make a full scan, and create a digital print of the same size. Once the full-size reproduction of the Charter is ready, it will be mounted into the window-mat and frame assemblage for public viewing in the Charter Museum at the Statehouse.

The Charter Museum will remain open to the public during normal business hours. The reproduction is expected to be up and available for public viewing, after Veterans’ Day.

At Northeast Document Conservation Center, the Charter will be separated into its three original sections and full-scale tracings of the three sections will be produced. Northeast Document Conservation Center will perform conservation treatment on the Charter, including humidification and flattening.

The state has an agreement with Goso LLC of New Hampshire to build three encasements for the Rhode Island Charter. The encasements will enclose the Charter in an environment of modified inert gas, and include instrumentation for monitoring the gas.

ARTEX will reconfigure the custom-made crate for transporting the three sections of the original Charter to the State Archives, where they will be stored until the encasements are ready for installation in the Charter Museum.

“We look forward to seeing the Charter in its new encasements,” Mollis said.

A total of $200,000 of the $700,000 project cost is being funded through grants and charitable contributions.

The Champlin Foundation awarded a $161,000 grant to the Rhode Island State House Restoration Society to fund the construction of one of the encasements. Additionally, the State House Restoration Society received donations from Alex and Ani, the Providence Journal Charitable Fund, Fidelity Investments, Cox Business, Amica Mutual Insurance Company, Roger Williams University, GTECH and CVS Health.

Individual contributions came from the John L. Loeb Foundation, the Ford Family Foundation and Ambassador William J. Middendorf, and $500,000 was allocated to the Secretary of State’s Office from the General Assembly for fiscal 2015. The aluminum blocks, which will be used to fabricate a portion of each of the encasements, are being donated by Electric Boat.

According to information provided by Mollis, Rhode Island’s Colonial Charter of 1663 holds a unique place in the evolution of global human rights.

“At the time King Charles II issued the Charter in 1663, it was the first time in history that a monarch granted a charter guaranteeing that individuals within a society were free to practice religious freedom and possessed the right to govern their own colony without interference from the government, and it defined our state’s rich heritage,” a press release stated.

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