John Augustine Zahm

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Father Zahm, CSC, 3rd from left, Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kermit, and surviving members of the 1913 expedition up the River of Doubt in the Amazon Rainforest

Father John Augustine Zahm, CSC (June 11, 1851 – November 10, 1921) was a Holy Cross priest, author, scientist, and South American explorer. He was born at New Lexington, Ohio and died in Munich, Germany.

Zahm was educated at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and upon graduation entered the Congregation of Holy Cross, and was ordained priest in 1875. He filled various positions in the Congregation, at one time being provincial from 1898 to 1906. He was the author (sometimes under the pseudonym of Mozans), of a number of books covering a large variety of subjects; among these were: Evolution and Dogma, Scientific Theory and Catholic Doctrine, Up the Orinoco and Down the Magdalena, Along the Andes and down the Amazon, The Quest of El Dorado. He was an enthusiastic Dante student and assembled at Notre Dame one of the three largest of the Dante libraries in America. He was a scholarly and brilliant writer.

Zahm befriended 26th President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, who also loved and read Dante in Italian. It was Father Zahm who talked President Roosevelt into participating in what came to be known as the Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition to South America and which would also include Theodore's son, Kermit, and Colonel Da Silva Rindon, to go up the Rio da Dúvida (River of Doubt, now the Roosevelt River). This trip deteriorated into a near disaster and it caused one man to drown, another to be murdered and almost killed Roosevelt, shortened his life by probably ten years from the combined effects of malaria and infection, and almost cost Zahm and the others their lives as well, as the members lost boats to waterfalls and rapids and almost ran out of food. They barely made it to the first sign of civilization and some certainty that they would survive. The elder Roosevelt had to be carried off his canoe, so weak and ravaged by sickeness had he become. On that expedition as well as others, Zahm collected maps, photographs, relics, curios, et cetera, which were added to the valuable collection of fifteen hundred volumes of South American history and research work at Notre Dame University.

He planned a book on historical and archaeological study of the Holy Land, but Zahm died of bronchial pneumonia in a Munich hospital on route to the Middle East.

Zahm is the namesake of Zahm Hall, one of the most famous residence halls at the University of Notre Dame. A number of notable Notre Dame alums have called Zahm home, including Regis Philbin, George Wendt, Joe Theismann, Joe Montana, Paul Hornung, Johnny Lattner, and Courtney Watson.