Wandle Mace Machine Shop

20 Wall Street

One of the first converts to the LDS Church in New York City, Wandle Mace was at that time a successful machinist and coach maker. By 1830 he was listed as having a portable machinist shop at 20 Wall Street, on the northwest corner of Nassau and Wall Streets, just east of a Presbyterian church.

Born in 1809, Mace apprenticed as a wheelwright at age 13 and worked making wheels and coaches. He later had coachmaker's shops at 161 W. Broadway (1833-34) and at 249 Elizabeth St. (1838).

He patented two machines for post mortising and rail sharpening, and sold the patents. He also built a machine for sweeping the streets based on the design of a Mr. Kidder. “This was the first street sweeping machine ever made and used in NYC,” Mace later wrote.

When Parley P. Pratt came to New York City, Mace was operating his shop at 20 Wall Street. He had purchased the patent on a portable mill called a conical grinder. In his shop he made and sold the grinders.

Mace had been excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church because he didn't believe some of its doctrines and was meeting privately with truth-seeking friends to discuss the scriptures. He also went from house to house preaching the gospel each Sunday for two years before deciding he didn't have the authority to preach.

At a private meeting Elijah Fordham introduced him to Parley P. Pratt and learned of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Parley P. Pratt later visited Mace's house at 13 Bedford Street, and there healed his son and a Mrs. Dexter and her daughter, leading to their baptisms.

At Wandle Mace's Home

"A child of Mr. Wandle Mace, of No. 13 Bedford street, was healed of brain fever in the last stage, when he doctors had given it over, and the kindred and neighbors had gathered in to see it die. I laid my hands on it, in the presence of the all,and it was healed, and in a few hours took nourishment, and commenced to play and run about the floor.

In the same house, in an upper chamber, lay a woman, by the name of Dexter, sick, who had not left her room, nor scarcely her bed, for some six months; she was at the point of death, and her babe also, who had taken the disease from her. Her mother, who had the care of her, was present when the child was healed, and she ran up stairs and told the woman that there were men below who healed the sick, as in days of old, by the laying on of hands in the name of Jesus. The woman exclaimed, "Thank God, then I can be healed." She sent for us, and was from that hour restored to health, and the child also.

She walked about two miles to the East River and was baptized, and then walked home again--it being a very wet day with snow and rain, and the sidewalks about shoe deep in snow and mud. After these three miracles of healing had been witnessed in that house in Bedford street, six persons who witnessed them were baptized, viz: Wandle Mace and wife, Theodore Curtis and wife, and the sick woman and her mother, before named."

Extent of New York City, 1840s

• Construction of Lexington and Madison Avenues begins in 1840s.
• First water from Croton water system arrives at new Croton Aqueduct (Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, site of current New York Public Library main branch) and at Croton Fountain in City Hall Park.
• Madison Square (24th Street) opens 10 May 1847.

In New York and U.S. History

• 10 April 1841 - First issue of Horace Greeley's New York Tribune.
• 19 July 1845 - New York City’s second "Great Fire" kills 30 and destroys 300 buildings in area extending from Wall Street to Coentie's Slip, east of Broad St.
• 1845 - New York Knickerbocker's Club accepts Abner Doubleday and Alexander Cartwright's rules for baseball.

In LDS Church History

• November 1839 – Parley P. Pratt arrives back in New York City, staying six months before leaving for England.
• 20 July 1840 – Ship Britannia arrives in New York City with 41 Mormon immigrants, first of more than 85,000 to arrive through New York City by 1890.
• April 1841 – The Quorum of the Twelve meet in England, the only time the quorum has met outside the U.S.
• 27 June 1844 – Joseph and Hyrum Smith martyred in Carthage, Illinois.

Further Reading

• Pratt, Parley P., The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book).
• Mace, Wandle. Autobiography of Wandle Mace. BYU Special Collections.
• Roberts, B. H. History of the Church (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978).