Holy Martyrs Of Japan Church

Holy Martyrs began as a small church and cemetery site on the 9th Line as a chapel for the local farmers in West Gwillimbury and surrounding area. The mission church, was built and blessed in 1864 by Bishop John Joseph Lynch, of Toronto. It was dedicated to the twenty-six Martyrs of Japan, who had been canonized at a historic ceremony in Rome two years earlier, at which Bishop Lynch had been present. In the fall of 1940, the mission church in Bradford was separated from St. John's Chrysostom Parish, Newmarket; and erected as a separate parish, with Rev. Fr. Melville Bolan as its first parish priest. In April 1990, the doors to the new home of Holy Martyrs of Japan on Essa Street opened.