Mr. Green’s visits were all made in my presence, while Wyatt was confined in his cell, a room some four by seven feet in size; hence, all that passed between them could be distinctly heard and known by all three of us.
I have no disposition to injure Mr. Green, but I should do violence to every principle of justice and humanity, were I to remain silent, and see a fellow-being tried for his life in the midst of that prejudice which has already condemned the criminal to a thousand deaths, by Mr. Green’s published declarations of Wyatt’s own confessions of bloody deeds and horrid murders, when, in reality, the prisoner has made no such confessions to him, to my certain knowledge.
To avoid this unpleasant task, I addressed a private note to Mr. Green, calling for a satisfactory explanation; but, in his reply, he utterly refuses a single retraction, and the only alternative left me is to let the prisoner suffer this great injustice, or disabuse the public mind from the wrong impressions made by fabrications of Mr. Green.
I hope to be spared the disagreeable necessity of resorting to the newspapers of the day to correct any further improprieties of Mr. Green on this subject. If I am not, I will give a specific catalogue of them in my next.
All editors of newspapers, whether political or religious, are requested to give the above an insertion in their columns, as an act of justice to an injured man, and very much oblige.
Your obedient servant,
O.E. MORRILL, Chaplain.
No. 7.
Toledo, August 5, 1845.
To the Editor of the New York Tribune:
Dear sir,—I beg leave to introduce to your columns the following article, written for the purpose of satisfying the honest part of the community, that a letter written by the Rev. O.E. Morrill, on the 25th of July last, is an unprincipled misrepresentation of my purpose, in bringing to light the horrid deeds of murder committed by Wyatt, now in the Auburn State Prison.
I visited Wyatt four times, in company with Mr. Morrill, Chaplain of the Prison. The time I spent with him in all these visits was about five hours, during which we conversed about his former course of life. It is impossible for me to state in one article all that he revealed to me, but what I do remember, I published in my letters, relative to my visits to the cell of Wyatt. The second of these letters was dated April 7th, and the first about the 1st of April. I read both these letters to the reverend gentleman; the first before it went to press, and the second as soon as published, we being at both times together, with some officers of the institution, in the State Prison office.