Mr. Henninger was born April 22, 1851, near Emaus, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania; was educated in the public schools and Freeland Seminary, now Ursinus College, Montgomery County. He taught in the common schools for three terms. In 1870 he graduated from the Keystone State Normal School at Kutztown, Pa. He is also a graduate of Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa., class of 1874; afterwards he was a professor for one year in the preparatory school of that college. He studied law as a student in the office of the Hon. John D. Stiles and was admitted to the Bar of Lehigh County, September 5, 1876. He was elected District Attorney of Lehigh County, November 6, 1877, and served for a term of three years from the first Monday of January 1878. November 7, 1882, he was elected State Senator of Lehigh County, comprising the 16th Senatorial District of Pennsylvania and served the said district in that office by re-election for three terms of four years each. Since his admission to the Bar he had been an active practitioner, until the first Monday of January, 1920, when he assumed the duties of judge of the Courts of Lehigh County comprising the 31st Judicial District of Pennsylvania, for which district he had been elected additional law judge at the preceding general election of 1919. His commission to that office by Hon. William U. Sprout, Governor of Pennsylvania, is dated December 3, 1919, and the term of office is for ten years to be computed from the first Monday of January 1920.

In politics he consistently supported the policies of the Democratic Party: served as a delegate at the Democratic Convention of 1882 at Harrisburg, which nominated Hon. Robert E. Pattison for Governor of Pennsylvania, to which office he was subsequently elected. For a number of years he was chairman of the Democratic Committee of Lehigh County. Since his election on the non-partisan ticket for judge in 1919 and his elevation to the bench of his native county, he had refrained from taking an active part in political campaign.

He served on the bench for over a year and a half. He died September 25, 1921, and is buried in Fairview Cemetery at Allentown, Pa.