This park is named for Mary Walton (ca.1726-1794). In 1749, Walton married Lewis Morris III (1726-1798), the only New Yorker to sign the Declaration of Independence. The couple had 10 children and lived in the southwest Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania. Their son Captain William Walton Morris (1760-1832) served as aide-de-camp to General Anthony Wayne (1745-1796) in the Revolutionary War. It is commonly thought that the adjacent Walton Avenue commemorates Gerard Walton Morris, a landowner and descendant of Mary and Lewis.