John Altham was born in 1589 in Warwickshire, England. His early life is obscure, and it is not certain whether his real name was Altham or Gravenor (possibly Grosvenor). His colleague, Father Andrew White, speaks of him as Altham, while in his latter years he was always mentioned as Father Gravenor.
Presumably, Altham might have been educated at one of the Jesuit seminaries for the English on the continent at Douay, or elsewhere.
Altham is believed to have entered the Jesuit order in 1623; whether he was of Roman Catholic parentage or not, his career in England must necessarily have been difficult, since in 1585 all Jesuits and Seminary priests were by Parliamentary decree expelled from the kingdom. If educated at one of the Jesuit seminaries for the English, he had been sent to his native land, and had been in ministry in Devonshire and London before joining the Maryland colonists.
Altham and White boarded at the Isle of Wight the Dove and the Ark, carrying the twenty gentlemen and 200 servants whom Leonard Calvert was taking to colonize the proprietorship of his brother, Lord Baltimore, in the New World. They set sail in the late autumn of 1633, and went by way of the West Indies. Upon arrival at Chesapeake Bay in March of 1634, where they held the first mass on Lady's Day, Calvert took Father Altham as his comrade on an initial exploration of the Potomac River.
After the settlement of St. Mary's, Altham served in the fort; but soon asked permission to visit and preach to the Indians.
For, although weak in health, he had "a bent for the hard missionary life. " He thereupon was sent to Kent Island, where by 1640 he had made so deep an impression on the local chief that the latter and his wife were baptized as "Charles" and "Mary" in honor of the English sovereigns, and were married by clerical rites. Kent Island, where it was hoped trade might be drawn from the "Grand Lake of Canada, " was the seat of a Virginia settlement, and the rivalry between the two groups of colonists lasted during the remainder of Father Altham's life.
Through illness, he lost the use of his feet, but recovered sufficiently to accompany some of his Indian converts to St. Mary's, where he finally died, not, however, before Maryland had been reenforced by other Jesuit missionaries to continue his work.
Altham was one of the two Jesuits who accompanied Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimoreand arrived in the Chesapeake Bay in 1634. Upon landing, he obtained a hut from its Indian owner, which he fitted up for religious service, and it was afterward known as "the first chapel in Maryland. " He performed his missionary work among the Indians around Kent Island till his death.
Altham was a member of the Society of Jesus.
Altham never married.
