Truth Uncovered: The real "Lightweight" Story of Napoleon Dufresne

A century ago, Nap Dufresne was a top prize fighter in New England. Wonder if he liked the boys in the press?

My long career as a sportswriter produced numerous reader taunts of “lightweight” and “that was a low blow.”

I quite fancied myself a quick-jab artist (with words) and was very deadline quick on my feet. I could also rope-a-dope an assignment editor for weeks until he punched himself out on a bad story idea.

Now I know it was in my DNA.

I had heard stories growing up that my great grandfather was a boxing champion of some repute, the alleged former “featherweight champion of France.”

I chalked it up to scintilla-of-truth plus exaggeration and never gave it serious thought until this past year, when I began assisting my 85-year-old father on research for the family-legacy memoir he has just completed.

My dad never knew his grandfather, Napoleon Dufresne, and to this day can produce not a single scrap of boxing archival support.

Guess what, though, those handed-down stories were true.

The most fantastically satisfactory piece of information I recently came across was a syndicated column by Damon Runyon, one of the most famous sportswriters ever.

It appeared July 10, 1932, in the Sunday edition of the Minneapolis Tribune.

The “Damon Runyon Says” story appeared side-by-side (think Ruth and Gehrig) to Grantland Rice’s signature “The Sportlight” column. Rice was posting from Los Angeles on the 1932 Olympic Games.

Runyon’s waxed-on nostalgic opening salvo began, “What’s become of those old time New England fighters I used to read about when I was a little boy?”

He then turned writing-device voice to a “man from Boston,” who cleverly rat-a-tatted a poetic verse of updated whereabouts.

“…Jimmy Briggs is a steamfitter at Chelsea, and boxed a benefit not long ago. George Robinson, the Negro middleweight, is around Boston. His eyes are bad. Patsy Sweeney is a laborer. Mont the newsboy is a bookmaker in Providence. George Freeman is a manager. Freddy O’Brien lives in Chelsea. Bobby Tickle is a referee at Fall River. Napoleon Dufresne is living in Lewiston…”

Damon Runyon typed my great grandpa’s name.

“Nap” Dufresne was a fighter, he was a somebody and yes, he was a contender.

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Nap made such a good living with his fists from 1902 to 1912 he saved enough money to buy a poultry farm outside of Lewiston. He was prematurely forced to retire there, unfortunately, after a third dislocation of his left shoulder.

It was all going to end happily-ever-after until the chicken farm burned to the ground.

That was front-page news in the May 29, 1915 edition of the North Adams (Mass) Transcript. “`Nap’ Dufresne Has A Hard Stroke of Luck.”

Former boxers, including rival Al Demont, vowed to hold a benefit to help Dufresne who had no insurance on the property and was left with “what little money he had left in his pockets.”

What “Nap” did next was move to Boston to teach boxing and physical fitness at the Boston Institute of Physical Culture on 175 Massachusetts Ave.

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I have a copy of the advertisement he took out in the paper but the trail goes pretty cold after that. My father had nothing to fill in the blanks.

What we can definitely say is that Napoleon Charles Dufresne, of Lewiston, was a top-notched boxer in New England until his left shoulder blew out.

On May 12, 1912, about a month after the Titanic sank, the North Adams Transcript ran a two-column headline recapping Nap’s career.

“Dufresne’s retirement will mark the passing of one of the best featherweight boxers in New England,” the paper wrote.

Nap Dufresne’s exploits were featured prominently in numerous newspapers, including the Montreal Gazette and Boston Globe.

Boxing records are sketchy and incomplete but it’s probably fair to say he lost more than he won, with numerous draws, no-decisions and unsanctioned bouts, although newspaper accounts seem to collectively agree injuries derailed what could have been a brilliant career.

Nap was a brawler in a time of brawlers, when 15-round fights were common. He once fought two men in one day in a six-round doubleheader.

Nap fought epic bouts against epic names like Pinky Evans, Patsy Kline, Alf Lynch and Kid Donahue.​

Nap battled up and down the eastern seaboard and in Canada, in armories and halls. He fought Patsy Kline at the Odd Fellows Hall in Massachusetts and Al Demont at the Rollaway Rink in Manchester, NH.

He fought at the Malsonne Ave. Opera House (Montreal) and the Unity Cycle Club in Lawrence, Ma.

Nap performed before big houses of 2,000 patrons, but also once had to cancel a bout because not enough people showed up at the arena.

Nap fought Billy Allen four times. The first bout, on March 6, 1908, in Montreal, ended in a DQ in favor of Allen after 12 rounds.

Dufresne was called for a low blow to the groin, an action he always denied as it belied his nickname “Gentleman Nap.”

In October of 1906, Nap won a tough, 15-round decision over “Young” Lenny in Quebec City.

The Montreal Gazette called it “one of the best fights that has ever been seen between little men in this vicinity.”

But, wait, there’s more:

“When the gong rang at the end of the fifteenth round and Pat Rooney announced that Dufresne had won, both fighters shook hands and Dufresne leaned over his opponent and kissed him.”

Take that, Billy Allen!

Not that great-grandpa couldn’t throw a sucker punch.

In April of 1910, Nap won a six-round decision over Young Delaney in Lewiston.

According to the Boston Globe account, Nap refused to shake hands at the opening bell and instead “caught Delaney off guard and landed a hard right just under the right eye, cutting a deep gash…”

I could not verify that Nap was ever the featherweight champion of France, but can confirm he won the featherweight crown of Canada (and also lost it).

Ainsworthsports.com, a world boxing index that rates fighters by decade, rates Nap Dufresne at No. 425 from the period of 1900-1909.

Hey, not Jack Johnson, but not too shabby.

I wonder what Nap would have thought of his great-grandson becoming a big-city sportswriter who, with his flowery prose, once covered title fights in a far-off place called "Las Vegas."

I wonder if Grandpa Nap would have loathed, or liked, me. Maybe in his time I would have been one of those coat-and-hat hacks who might take up the cause of a young “Frenchy” fighter from Maine, bet heavily on (or against) him and then ride him all the way to the top (or bottom).

Or, at least until the poultry farm burned down.

One last jab. Low blow?