Congregation Rodeph Shalom dates its founding to 1795 with the coalescing of what was the first Ashkenazic congregation in the Western Hemisphere. The proper arrangement for burial was extremely important to its founding congregants, even before a house of worship had been formally established, and so in 1801, Thomas Warwick, blacksmith, and his wife, conveyed a lot of land in the village of Kensington, in the Northern Liberties, to guarantors Leon van Amring, Isaiah Nathan, Isaac Marks, Aaron Levy, Jr., Abraham Gumpert, and Abraham Moses for the establishment of a burial ground. The lot fronted 18 feet on the south side of a 20-foot-wide lane, which would later become Duke Street, and is now East Thompson Street, between Marlborough and Shackamaxon Streets, and extended 97 feet southward.

Though the purchase was made for $127.00 on November 23, 1801, the deed was not recorded until October 8, 1805. After mentioning the names of the guarantors, the deed contains this interesting clause:

"In trust nevertheless and upon this special confidence only that the said lot of ground be held, and kept for and as a burial place or ground for the Hebrew Tribe or Nation of and belonging to the synagogue to which they, the said guarantors, now belong, in the said City and County of Philadelphia; and to and no other use, intent, or purpose, whatsoever."

A neighboring lot was subsequently acquired to expand the cemetery to a total extent of 38 by 97 feet. In spite of this expansion, the congregation found that additional space was yet needed to accommodate their dead. And so, in May, 1838, they purchased additional ground in the village of Jacksonville, now Nicetown, to lay out a new place of interment. Maintenance of the old burial ground, however, became a source of irritation to the congregation. A committee reported in January, 1850, that,

"We have visited the old burying ground in Kensington, which we are sorry to say we found in a most deplorable situation.

"The fence which surrounds it is no longer protection; such is its conditions that the hogs have found means of entering and through the Boards, which are easily knocked down and with horror we beheld a sight which would cause any civilized community to shudder.

"The tombs which from all time have been considered sacred, have been permitted to be desecrated—the mounds have been broken down—and the earth rooted up and such of the tomb stones as escaped a similar fate, have been removed by the hands of the thief, those should a surviving friend or relative of any one therein interred, wish to visit the tomb they would be at a loss to know, at what heap of destruction they should stop.

"Let us but for a moment imagine the ground in which we purpose our remains to be deposited, similarly neglected and in like condition some years hence, then will we feel the consciousness of the breach of confidence and trust which has been reposed in us by those whose tombs have been thus desecrated.

"Your committee recommend that it be immediately cleaned out and be restored to a condition which the sanctity of the place calls for."

Additional space was still needed, so in 1854 the congregation established a third, larger burial ground in Harrowgate.

By the late 1880s, the congregation decided to remove its old burial ground in Kensington, and, following the disinterment removal of bodies from the ground, in February, 1889 the lots were sold to Conrad K. Bertholet.

Row houses now occupy the site.