Henry Kleiber

Henry Kleiber’s name appeared in the Tonawanda newspapers again and again—not for achievements, but for arrests.

He lived on Niagara Street and made his living as a fisherman on the river. To authorities, however, he was something else entirely: a river pirate. Game protectors accused Kleiber of illegal fishing with a seine, a practice that stripped the river clean. In one raid at the mouth of Rattlesnake Creek, officers seized more than 500 pounds of carp, along with the skiff used in the operation. Kleiber and his partner were marched to the police station while their catch was confiscated.

But fishing violations were only part of his record.

In 1906, Henry Kleiber achieved a distinction few could match. He was the first man sentenced that year in Tonawanda police court—and the last. On both occasions, the charge was intoxication. Each time, he asked to be sent to the Erie County Penitentiary. Each time, the judge granted him thirty days. His name opened and closed the court ledger for the entire year.

Kleiber’s violence made him even more notorious.

During one drunken episode, he attacked Sergeant Charles Diedrich after being placed under arrest. Without warning, Kleiber drew a pair of scissors from his coat and slashed wildly at the officer. One thrust pierced Diedrich’s sleeve before the sergeant subdued him with his baton. The struggle was so fierce that it took more than an hour for doctors to dress the officer’s injuries.

So troubled was Kleiber’s life that at one point his sister searched the Buffalo morgue, believing him dead. Instead, he returned home—alive, injured, and fresh from another short sentence in the penitentiary.

Standing at this grave, there is no courtroom, no river, no shouting crowd. Only a name and the silence that finally claimed a man who spent much of his life moving between the water, the jail, and the edge of violence.

This is the dark side of the city: not a single crime, but a life repeatedly unraveling in public view.