Bradford Friends Meeting was established in 1729, and first came to Marshallton in 1737 to a log meeting house in the southern part of the village. When the present stone meeting house was built in 1765, the old graveyard was removed to the present site; the old log meeting was moved as well, becoming a stable, though it has since been removed.

In 1827, after the Hicksite Separation in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Bradford meeting split into Hicksite and Orthodox branches. The Orthodox sect retained the Bradford meeting house in Marshallton for almost 130 years before reuniting in 1955.

The Meeting's burying ground comprises only about 300 feet square. It is estimated that over 3,700 people have been interred within its walls over its long history. Most interments are in the northern half of the ground; in the northwest corner, the most used portion of the ground, it is said the bodies are buried two deep, graves being dug above another.

The plain custom of the Friends in not marking graves means that most burials in the graveyard are not visibly marked. Around 1860, a revival of the sentiment led to Friends removing grave markers from the ground, placing offending ones outside the walls, and lowering some of the existing stones into the ground. As the burying ground had been used by many families around Marshallton, most of whom were no longer members of the Society, some neighbors became unhappy with the "fanatical spirit" of the decision to remove their family markers, and it is said that the sentiment contributed in large part to the movement establishing the neighboring Bradford Cemetery, where "more liberal views would prevail and people could mark the graves of their dead, according to their tastes and means."

Today, Bradford Friends is a well-maintained ground. Many older grave markers still lie buried shallowly in the earth.