Parley P. Pratt — Three Miraculous Healings at No. 13 Bedford Street, New York City, Lead to Six Baptisms
Published April 26, 2026 at 8:06 AM
Contributed by
Todd Morgan
Beaumont, CA, 92223
During Parley P. Pratt's first mission to New York City in 1837–1838, he preached up to eleven times a week in fifteen crowded venues across the city. Among the most concentrated sequences of miraculous healings of his entire ministry, three distinct healings occurred in rapid succession at the home of Mr. Wandle Mace at No. 13 Bedford Street — each performed openly before witnesses, and each ending in an immediate, dramatic recovery.
First, a lady who had been four years under a doctor's care with a crippled leg arose and walked, her leg instantly restored whole. Then the Maces' own child, given over to die of brain fever in its last stage while kindred and neighbors gathered to watch it die, was healed the moment Pratt laid hands on it in the presence of them all — within a few hours it took nourishment and began to play and run about the floor. Finally, Mrs. Dexter, who for six months had scarcely left her bed and lay at the point of death with her babe, was healed from the hour the elders administered to her — and her child with her. She then walked about two miles to the East River through snow and mud to be baptized, and walked home again.
Pratt recorded the direct result: '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.' The pattern he saw again and again in his ministry — miraculous demonstrations of divine power, performed in faith before witnesses, opening hearts to the restored gospel — is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in that one house.
In Their Own Words
“One lady, who had been four years under the doctor’s care with a crippled leg, arose and walked, with her leg instantly restored whole, even as the other. … A child of Mr. Wandle Mace, of No. 13 Bedford street, was healed of brain fever in the last stage, when the 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 them 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.”
— Parley P. Pratt, Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (1874), Chapter XX; public text at Project Gutenberg (ebook 44896)
Sources & References
Parley P. Pratt, Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt (1874), Chapter XX (first New York mission, 1837–1838); full public text at Project Gutenberg ebook 44896: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44896/44896-h/44896-h.htm
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