Ward (Martin Maria de Porres) is born in Charlestown.

The son of a white father and African-American mother, he is raised as a Methodist but becomes a Catholic after moving to Washington, D.C. After moving to Brooklyn, he joins the Order of Conventional Franciscans, is ordained in 1955, and is assigned to an area in Brazil northwest of Rio de Janeiro. Ward dies in 1999 and begins to be investigated for sainthood in June 2020.