In another account, Ena Mitchel wrote:

I feel I should tell you a little about my grandparents who were adventurous and courageous individuals, each taking their place in helping to develop our great country in its early years, going through danger and many hardships, as other great Americans in our country did. My grandfather, James Hennefer, was born in 1821 in England and was baptized into the church when he was 23 years old. He married Sarah Hulks who was born in London, England in 1823. To this union 12 children were born, including one set of triplets and one set of twins. They endured many hardships crossing the great Atlantic Ocean and coming to Zion to make their home in Utah.

My grandfather, James Hennefer, and his brother, William Hennefer, were called by President Brigham Young to take their families and start a settlement along the Weber River in the Valley that was then known as an Indian hunting ground. Upon the advice of President Young, they gathered their meager belongings together, placed them in two covered wagons and made the hard journey over the mountains into the little valley now known as Henefer. They took up 40 acres of land on the sage-covered flat and proceeded to organize a make-shift home. It was necessary for them to live in their wagons to fortify themselves against the Indians while they cut and prepared logs to build their cabins. Each night one of the men would keep the fires burning to frighten away wild animals or unfriendly Indians. The first cabin finished, which consisted of one large room and a lean-to, was occupied by both families until a second could be built.

They brought with them two milk cows, two pair of oxen and different kinds of seeds. At this time the valley was covered with sagebrush. The Hennefers endured many dangerous sacrifices and hardships. Often they would find a brown bear in the lean-to of the house, calmly licking the cream from the milk or eating wild honey they had gathered. In 1861 my grandfather’s brother, William Hennefer, was chosen by Brigham Young as Presiding Elder of the Hennefer Branch, with James Hennefer and Abraham Hays as counselors.

The Hennefer brothers planted and thrashed the first grain in the Valley. They used oxen and the grain was cut with a sickle and they thrashed it out with sticks on a large canvas.

Sarah Hulks Hennefer, my grandmother and the wife of James Hennefer, was a schoolteacher, seamstress and glove-maker. She made the first American flag by hand that was raised in Henefer. Mrs. Jessie Foster helped her put the stars in the field of blue. My grandmother made gloves for the officers in the Army and for the Indians. The Indians paid her for making the gloves by trading her buckskin and beads. She made beautiful beaded designs on the gauntlet of the gloves. (I saw these patterns for her gloves still in the Hennefer Family Bible in 1941 when I took my mother Rachel and sister Mae to Henefer.)

Grandfather Hennefer gave the land for the Church house to be built. This land still belongs to the Church and they are using it. Grandfather Hennefer was a blacksmith by trade and always had a shop he worked in.