[2] The couple shared a compound with other missionaries such as Samuel Robbins Brown and James Curtis Hepburn and discreetly promoted their religion in spite of its illegal status in Japan at the time.

They worked to translate the Gospel of John with the help of Rizuan Yano, who Ballagh later baptized in the earliest Protestant Christian baptism in Japan.

James Ballagh continued teaching English independently in a small stone house to a group of twenty to forty students.

[3] The edict against Christianity in Japan was abolished in 1873, and Ballagh and his fellow missionaries began to preach and recruit more openly.

[1] One daughter, Carrie Elizabeth Ballagh, married Frank Harrel, an Episcopal missionary physician who introduced baseball to Sendai.