Around the year 1833, the Directors of the Poor of Roxborough Township in Philadelphia County established a poor house. However, in 1847, the Borough of Manayunk was established out of the township, and the old poor house found itself within the boundaries of that municipality, and so Roxborough was compelled to establish a new institution to house its poor. And this they did around the year 1853, purchasing a substantial building on Livezey's Mill Road and the 42-acre farm on which it sat.

Following the Consolidation Act of 1854, in which the townships in Philadelphia County were united into the City and County of Philadelphia, some municipal districts elected to continue caring for the poor within their former boundaries: Germantown, Oxford and Lower Dublin, Byberry and Moreland, and Roxborough. And so, Roxborough continued to maintain its poor farm, and there established a new burying place for its dead.

As at the old burying ground, the potter's field at the new poor house was likely established on a non-arabale corner of the property (23 of the 42 acres were woodland), probably on a hill on the southern corner. Due to the relatively modest nature of the institution, few burials are thought to have occurred there over the decades, many of its residents being buried at other local cemeteries as funds permitted.

The well-kept, 16-room building and farm were used for decades, and local residents fought to keep it open in spite of city proposals to turn it into a home for consumptives and other plans to use the grounds. But in 1938, the duties of the local poor boards were abolished by an act of the Pennsylvania legislature, and Roxborough's poor were moved to the Home for the Indigent in Holmesburg. The former poor house served as a time as a convalescent home before finally closing for good.

The grounds of the of former poor farm were split up, some going to Fairmount Park, and some being used to build the Walter Biddle Saul High School of Agricultural Sciences.

It is unknown if any traces of the old potter's field survive today.