Bradford is a village and former town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States.

Eastern Bradford is the current town of Groveland, while western Bradford was annexed by the city of Haverhill, and today consists of the part of Haverhill on the south bank of the Merrimack River.

It was named in memory of Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, from which some of the settlers had emigrated, and first paid colonial tax on October 13, 1675.

The east parish of Bradford (established in 1726) separated in 1850 and was incorporated as the town of Groveland on March 8, 1850.

The original meeting house was located where the Old Bradford Burying Ground is at 326 Salem St.

In 1676 Thomas Kimball was killed by a group Indians in Bradford during King Philips War.

William Kimbal marched a company of men from Bradford to Stillwater, New York.

Nathaniel Gage took a company of 40 men from Bradford to the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.

Bradford lacked the municipal resources and services that Haverhill had, such as hospitals and schools.

Some Haverhill residents favored annexation so as to increase Haverhill's English population against the Irish, French-Canadians, Germans, Italians, Hungarians and Slovaks, Bradford was primarily a farming community and there are a few farms still in operation.

Bradford had several shoe manufacturers who later moved to Haverhill except for William Knipe's factory in Ward Hill.