Morris Garden

E. 181 St. bet. Morris Ave. and Creston

Bronx

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

This park, as well as the adjacent Morris Avenue, gets its name from the famed Bronx landowners, the Morris family. In 1670 brothers Richard (c.1616-1669) and Lewis Morris (c.1601-1691) bought the southwestern Bronx property now known as Morrisania. It remained in the family until 1840s when Gouverneur Morris sold portions for the expansion of a railroad and creation of the Morrisania Village, which was settled in 1848. Morrisania Village was annexed by New York City in 1874. Richard Morris’s son, Lewis Morris, served as the first governor of New Jersey; Morris County, New Jersey, is named for him. Lewis Morris’s grandchildren Staats Long, Lewis, and Gouverneur all became statesmen in their own right.