Bonanza

Lotta Crabtree is hired by mining tycoon Alpheus Troy to lure one of the Cartwrights into town and hold him for ransom in exchange for Ponderosa timber rights.

Greedy opportunist Mark Burdette and his accomplice Early Thorne stir up trouble between the Paiute tribe and the citizens of Virginia City. Ben discovers Burdette and Thorne are...

John Pennington and his crew want to mine the Ponderosa land by hydraulic means. Ben is totally against this method and evicts them in short order. Hoss is given the task of tellin...

Trader Mike Wilson attempts to escape punishment by the Paiute Indians after mistreating two of their women, by placing the blame on Adam. A fierce war between the Paiutes and the...

Samuel Clemens arrives in Virginia City to write for the Territorial Enterprise at the same time a crooked politician tries to lay claim on the Ponderosa.

Little Joe is infatuated wih saloon owner Julia Bulette, whom he imagines is like his late mother. First episode to reveal backround details concerning Marie Cartwright, and inspi...

Adam defends the mining claim of Annie O' Toole in a court presided over by Judge Ben Cartwright. Annie comes to the Washoe Diggings with a claim to a mine filed by her beau, Swed...

Adam and Hoss assist a German engineer in developing the concept of "square set timbering" in the mines. Based on fact, and the first episode not to include all four Cartwrights....

In a flashback, the legendary prospector arrives on the Ponderosa and participates in the founding of Virginia City. Coincidentally, guest star Jack Carson played a teller at the...

Virginia City is visited by actress Adah Issacs Menken, who happens to be an old acquaintance of Ben's. Joe is badly beaten by Adah's jealous suitor, John C. Regan, who is bested...

Luther Bishop and Ben Cartwright have had an ongoing land dispute for a number of years, over a small tract called the Truckee Strip. One of Bishop's employee's has a grudge again...

Adam and Joe reluctantly join a group of vengeful townsmen, who are out to lynch the three men who supposedly killed Vannie Johnson. The posse is run by Paiute Scroggs and Flint J...

In a variation of "High Noon", Ben and Hoss must face a gang of outlaws practically all alone when most of Virginia City's citizens go into hiding. The most action-filled episode...

This episode begins with Adam defending the honor of Sue Ellen Terry in a duel. No one gets shot because the other man misses Adam and Adam generously shoots in the air to end the...

Hoss and Joe come across a pregnant Indian woman while hunting bighorn sheep and must deliver her baby. Despite touches of humor, including a scene in which Joe refers to a meal a...

Ben sends Hoss and Joe to Monterey to purchase an expensive seed bull. The first of Blocker and Landon's many comic misadventures, although the casual use of violence, as in the r...

Because she is related to criminals, a young woman is ostracized by everyone but the the Cartwrights. She unwisely seeks solace with an ex-con friend of Joe's, Clay Renton, and it...

As the Civil War approaches, Adam and Joe clash over which side to support. The situation is complicated by the arrival of Frederick Kyle, a Southern sympathizer. He was an old f...

In the first all-out comic episode of the series, Hoss and Joe travel to Kiowa Flats, Texas, where they are mistaken for the notorious Slade Brothers, also played by Blocker and La...

The Cartwrights encounter racial bigotry in Virginia City and end up protecting a Chinese boy from mob violence. Victor Sen Yung, in his largest role to date, speaks normally in t...

In "The Spanish Grant", a young bargirl, Rosita Morales is pretending to be a Spanish noblewoman named Isabella Marie Inez de la Cuesta and at the end of the story, it's revealed s...

A shiftless sheepherder, Jeb Drummond, encroaches his herd of sheep on the Ponderosa and refuses to budge. He resists all of Ben's attempts to throw him off his land and finally r...

When a tough U.S. Marshal from California arrests a Ponderosa hand, Dave Walker, for murder, Adam and Hoss go along to make sure their employee reaches Los Angeles alive. In one s...

Nevada Territory is awaiting statehood, and Ben considers running for governor until he learns he is wanted for murder in New Orleans. Inspector Charles Leduque arrives and says B...

After Adam is bushwhacked by three army deserters, Ben tracks them down, and tackles the brutal Captain Bolton who is pursuing them.

A restaurant owner whom Ben and Adam have confronted over stolen Ponderosa beef ends up dead one night. His daughter, Sally Byrnes runs the cafe and in her resentment, wrongfully...

Adam takes Ben's friends, Lord Marion Dunsworth and Lady Beatrice, on a hunting expedition, and they are captured by a gang of crude thieves and murderers. During one early scene,...

In this comic episode, the first to take place far from the ranch, Ben, Hoss, and Joe deliver a herd to San Francisco. Although he warns his sons to be careful in the big city ("T...

Len Keith, a miner, wants to purchase some land adjacent to the Ponderosa from rancher Andy McKaren. Andy's son, Tod, is anxious to sell. Keith has offered him a partnership,and...

Hoss takes Billy Allen, the young son of a convicted felon under his wing, then is forced to kill his father and Billy will not forgive him. The most emotional Hoss story since "T...

Joe falls in love with Tirza, an undeniably strange gypsy girl who says she is cursed and never does seem to "snap out of it". The first episode of the series with a supernatural...

Virginia City is plagued by organized crime, Sam Bryant and his gang. One of his men, Farmer Perkins, kills a storekeeper, and at his trial, the wife of the store owner is afraid...