 Many of these supporters fled to other colonies, and on 7 March 1638, while still in Massachusetts, Sanford and many other supporters of Mrs. Hutchinson signed a document to establish a Christian-based government.With the encouragement of Roger Williams, they bought land of the Indians and settled on the island of Aquidneck in the Narragansett Bay, naming the settlement Pocasset, but later changed the name to Portsmouth.Sanford was in Portsmouth by May 1638 when he was present at a general meeting of inhabitants, and when he and John Coggeshall were ordered to lay out a meeting house on a neck of land.