There is a tiny church tucked away in the Beaverkill valley, whose even tinier churchyard contains one of Sullivan County's most baffling mysteries.

Buried in that secluded cemetery is a man who is generally regarded as one of the greatest professional fighters, pound for pound, the world has ever known. And no one has yet been able to establish his link to Sullivan County.

Why Abe Attell is buried here is a mystery even his surviving family members haven't been able to solve.

His gravestone provides nary a clue, reading simply, “Abe Attell, Featherweight Champion of the World 1901 - 1912.”

Abraham Washington Attell was born on Washington's Birthday (thus his middle name), February 22, 1884 in San Francisco. He learned to fight on the streets of the city, largely as a means of survival. The kids in the Irish-American neighborhood in which he was raised didn't particularly like the cocky Jewish kid, and he fought often and eventually, well. Attell once recalled that he often fought “3, 4, 5, 10 times a day” back then.

He had his first professional fight at the age of 16, and before he was 18 he had outboxed the talented former champion George Dixon to claim the vacant World Featherweight title. When he knocked out Harry Forbes in St. Louis in 1904, and decisioned Jimmy Walsh over 15 rounds in 1906, he became universally recognized as the world's best 126-pound fighter, and was nicknamed “The Little Champ.” But his reputation had just begun to grow.

Although just five-foot-four and a natural featherweight, Attell fought and beat many of the best lightweights of his time, and several welterweights, who often outweighed him by 25 pounds or more. He first became known as a power puncher, but later learned to box with the best of them. He was particularly adept at frustrating and tiring his opponents with what noted boxing historian Bert Randolph Sugar called “the greatest arm to body coordination in ring history” and then lowering the boom.

Attell's brother Monte won the World's Bantamweight title in 1909, marking the first time brothers had ever held world titles simultaneously. Monte was forced to quit the ring because of an eye infection, which eventually left him blind. After 21 successful title defenses, Abe lost his crown on his birthday in 1912, dropping a 20 round decision to Johnny Kilbane. He retired from the ring in 1917.

Attell was always known for his constant chatter in the ring, for his penchant for playing cards all night the night before a fight, and for betting large amounts of money on himself. And for all he accomplished in the ring - he had 165 professional fights, losing only ten, is often rated among the greatest fighters of all-time (some say the best, pound for pound) and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990 - he is remembered nearly as well in some circles for his purported role in one of the most notorious sports betting scandals of all time.

Attell is said to have been the liaison between Arnold Rothstein and the Chicago White Sox players in the scheme to fix the 1919 World Series. In fact, some who have closely studied the Black Sox scandal believe that Attell was much more than a liaison. According to some sources, Attell was serving as the middle man between a couple of low-level gamblers who had conspired with eight members of the Sox to throw the Series and Rothstein, whom they wanted to bankroll the scheme. Rothstein told Attell to deliver a message that he wasn't interested in the fix, because he thought it would never work, but Attell, convinced it was an opportunity to cash in big, told the gamblers his boss was in and would provide any capital they needed, prompting them to proceed with their plan. It was only later, so the story goes, when Rothstein saw that the fix was for real, that he decided to get in on the action.

Despite these claims, Attell always proclaimed his innocence in relation to the fix, and was never indicted. He apparently convinced the Chicago grand jury hearing the case in 1920 that he wasn't the Abe Attell everyone was talking about, a defense that caused the New York Sun to ask rhetorically, “Is Abe Attell himself, or is he somebody else?”

Attell's great-nephew Eric Thomsen of Oakland, California has made a study of his great uncle's life, but doesn't know if his uncle was involved in the World Series fix or not, and he doesn't know what brought Abe Attell to Sullivan County. He does know that after Attell divorced his first wife, he married Mae O'Brien, and together they managed a tavern on New York's East Side. Abe Attell spent the last years of his life in a nursing home, and died in Liberty-Loomis Hospital on February 6, 1970.

The Little Champ's passing moved one anonymous admirer to write:

“There's been fighters through the ages

Many greats we all know well

But the one who heads the pages

Is that little champ Attell

There will never be another Abe Attell

The little champ of champs we all know so well

Fought ‘em here and over there

Licked them all, fair and square.

From the opening round until the final bell

Just like Dempsey he'll go down in history

In the boxing Hall of Fame his name will dwell

And to you, and you, and you I'm here to tell

There will never be another Abe Attell.”

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.