The first vessel named Altamaha was owned by the Steamboat Company of Georgia, formed in 1816 by Samuel and Charles Howard. Built in Charleston in 1817, the Altamaha arrived at Savannah on Oct. 27, 1818. In 1836, a whaling schooner named the Altamaha based in New Bedford, Mass., was captured and burned by the Confederate raider Alabama on Sept. 13, 1862 in the Azores.