On November 22, 1633, he took Lord Baltimore's offer and set sail from Cowes, England on the Isle of Wight with planned proprietary first Governor of Maryland, Lord Leonard Calvert (1606-1647), (younger brother of Cecilius Calvert (1605-1675), second Lord Baltimore) and fellow Jesuits John Altham Gravenor and Thomas Gervase on "The Ark", one of George Calvert's ships, accompanied by "The Dove", crossing the North Atlantic Ocean. After a brief stop further south in Jamestown, Virginia, to consult with colonial authorities there and to resupply, the ships moved north up the Chesapeake Bay, with their landing on March 25, 1634, on St. Clement's Island off the north shore of the Potomac River, slightly upstream from the Chesapeake Bay, marks the birth of the colony of the Province of Maryland. The anniversary of this date is now celebrated annually state-wide as Maryland Day. In erecting a large cross, then celebrating a Catholic Mass of thanksgiving that day, he became the first priest to do so in the original thirteen English colonies. By July of that year, White had written his first discussion on the new colony, titled "A Relation of the Sucessefull Beginnings of the Lord Baltimore's Plantation in Maryland". Sections of this were used to further advertise the colony.