The High-Sierra adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community.
Western chronicling the adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons. When Ben refuses to sell his timber to Troy, he recruits Lotta to kidnap Ben's son.
When antelopes are slaughtered by poachers, the Cartwright's agreement is desecrated and sets events in motion which could start an Indian war.
Hoss falls for an invalid traveling with unscrupulous prospectors who want to mine the Ponderosa.
Wilson assaults two Paiute maidens and points the finger of blame at Adam, threatening a war between the Native Americans and the Californian militia.
The Cartwrights help Virginia City reporter Samuel Langhorne Clemens investigate suspected shady goings-on between a railroad company and a local judge.
Little Joe falls for cynical saloon owner Julia Bulette, despite family objections and warnings from a rival.
Annie asks Adam to help her open a restaurant in her father's honour, but they face stiff competition from an old friend staking a claim to her deeds.
Adam and Hoss put their lives in danger to help German engineer Philip Diedesheimer convince mine owners to adopt his innovative approach to preventing cave-ins.
The story of seasoned con man Henry Comstock comes to light when an old timer stakes a claim on the Cartwright's land; Little Joe romances a Paiute woman.
Ben considers marrying an actress when she comes to town, but his sons have some issues. The woman's former lover creates trouble when he also arrives in town.
Caught in the middle of a longtime family feud over a disputed piece of land, star-crossed lovers Joe Cartwright and Amy Bishop try to convince their stubborn fathers to resolve their differences as tension escalates into violence.
Adam and Little Joe form a posse to seek revenge on the murderers of Vannie Johnson. They become more like a lynching party the longer it takes to catch the killers.
When one of the Morgan brothers is shot and killed by Ben during a bank holdup, they vow revenge. The friends he thought he had in town decide to hide away while a wounded Ben lays up waiting for them to ride into town.
Adam has a duel with someone who insulted a saloon girl he likes. Ben is concerned that his son is getting involved with a girl who's past hasn't been very rosy. When she is shot and killed in his arms, he is arrested for her murder while the real killer he shot at gets away.
Hoss and Little Joe soon discover that the Shoshone Indian brave who tries to rob their hunting camp is actually a soon-due, pregnant Shoshone woman who refuses to tell them why she left her tribe and appears to be making her way towards Virginia City.
After tangling with bandits on the way to California to buy a prize bull for the Ponderosa, Little Joe fends off a pretty senorita and her jealous fiancé, while Hoss discovers that the bull has been spirited away by a little boy who is convinced that the Cartwrights plan to kill and eat his big bovine friend.
The Cartwrights come to the aid of Leta Malvet when she is ostracized by the community after her father and brother are hanged by a lynch mob for killing two men while trying to rob the stagecoach that they thought carried the Ponderosa's payroll. But Adam is sure that the gang will try again when they find out that the Malvets came up empty-handed and suspects that it's no coincidence when Leta's beau, bad boy Clay Renton, comes back to town.
Ben tries to uncover the reason gold and silver exporter, Frederick Kyle, has befriended Little Joe before the shadowy businessman's hidden Civil War agenda tears Virginia City, and the Cartwright family, apart.
On a cattle buying trip to Texas, Hoss and Little Joe are mistaken for a pair of hired killers recruited by a feuding family in their bid to wipe out a rival clan. Their efforts to convince the town otherwise are hindered by the fact that the Cartwrights are dead ringer for the gunfighters in question - Big Jack and Shorty Jim Slade. Written by David Bassler
The Cartwrights come to the aid of a Chinese-American stable hand accused of murder. Opposing them is a manipulative mayoral candidate who wants all "foreigners" to leave Virginia City.
The Cartwrights try to disprove the validity of a Spanish land grant to stop the De La Cuesta family from seizing part of the Ponderosa and all of the Carson Valley settlers' homestead lands.
Jeb Drummond is a murderous sheep herder that has Adam taken hostage to try and force Ben to sign over a large section of Ponderosa land to him.
As is often the case on Bonanza, things are not always as they first seem. Hoss and Adam eventually learn who is the good guy and who is not. When a brutal U.S. Marshal arrests one of the Ponderosa's workers for murder to transport him to Los Angeles for trial, and a doubtful Hoss and Adam come along in the stagecoach, along with a Dr. and his beautiful daughter, to make sure the Marshal doesn't kill him before they get there. The question also arises later of whether the ranch worker is really guilty and dangerous after all.
Inspector Leduque comes from New Orleans to Virginia City to take Ben Cartwright back for a 20 year murder. When Ben declares publicly that he is withdrawing from the Governor's race, the townsfolk are upset not just about this but Little Joe has also been accused of gunning down Leduque's deputy in cold blood.
Three deserters escaped from an Army stockade to the Ponderosa. When a Captain comes looking for them, Ben realizes what they've had to deal with and promises to let his good friend in charge of that fort know the real truth.
Ben and Adam are locked in jail, about to be hung for a crime they didn't commit. Joe and Hoss must find out why the witnesses to the alleged crime have perjured themselves before the execution takes place. They receive help from an unexpected source, a drifter called Lassiter who is searching for the men who committed a lynching in Kansas years ago.
When an English couple comes to the Ponderosa on vacation, the beautiful wife slowly makes it clear that she is no longer proud of her great hunter husband, because he has become less of the action man she married and more of a peaceful man, but that could all change when they are kidnapped for ransom along with Adam Cartwright.
The Cartwrights, with Hop Sing, finish a cattle drive in San Francisco. Ben warns the other men of the dangers of the big city. Nevertheless, some of the men are careless and naive. Two of the hired hands disappear, and Ben suspects that the men were shanghaied. With invaluable assistance from several of Hop Sing's cousins, the Cartwrights locate the missing men and break up the racket.
A neighboring rancher, Andy, is good friends with Ben, but his son (Todd) wants to sell their land for mining operations which will spoil the water rights agreement that Andy and Ben made years ago.
A woman dies. Her husband is in prison, and the sheriff needs someone to look after the boy until the boy's uncle can come to claim him. The Cartwrights begin to take care of the boy at the Ponderosa. When the boy arrives at the ranch, he does not know that his father is in prison. The boy learns the truth about his dad, and news reaches the Ponderosa that the convict has escaped from prison. The Cartwrights deal with the possibility that the boy's father may be coming their way
Little Joe comes upon a gypsy girl. Frightened, she runs and falls becoming unconscious. When she wakes, they discover that she believes she is bewitched and so do her people who banished her. Her birth under a dark star has fostered this belief. Little Joe, smitten, must rescue her from this belief, her people and someone posing as a wolf.
It's a sad day in Virginia City when Farmer Perkins shoots a store clerk down in cold blood right in front of his wife, then is allowed to walk after his trial. But if the Cartwright's have anything to do with it, he'll be rearrested, tried, and hung.
An outlaw gang robs Virginia City's bank and makes off with almost all of its money. The youngest member of the gang manages to get a job on the Ponderosa as a bronc buster with the intention of informing the bank robbers of any posses that may threaten their hideout. While Ben, Adam and Hoss welcome the newcomer, Little Joe becomes suspicious of his activities
Charlie Trent used to be an Army scout. Now he's the town drunk. Hoss helps him regain his self-esteem when he has him volunteer to lead a gold-bearing troop through the desert where there's very little water.
After a U.S. deputy marshal apparently saves Adam's life by gunning down two men who shot at him, he eventually reveals that he is in town to bring a close friend of the Cartwrights to San Francisco to testify in a statewide racketeering trial, but the Deputy Marshal's motives soon become suspect as to what he really wants to do with the reluctant witness.
The Cartwrights' neighbor Tom Edwards has lived as a paraplegic, ever since an accident involving Ben Cartwright and a gun. His ranch is going to waste. His wife Joyce is a longtime friend of Ben, and Ben decides to help the Edwards couple by making Tom a business proposition: the Cartwrights will build a grain mill on Edwards' land. In return, Ben only wants his investment money back, plus fifteen percent. Tom and his hired hand Ezekiel are suspicious of Ben, but Tom agrees to the deal. The Cartwright men build the mill, but tension begins to rise when Ezekiel makes comments which rekindle Tom's suspicion.
A wagon train of Quakers from Ohio are passing through town heading to Slaytersville. Adam tags along as he is smitten with the leader's daughter. Little does he know that the man he just befriended in town has eyes on the gold they're carrying to their promised land.
Ranchers are being killed, cattle stolen, and retired U.S. Deputy Marshall Denver McKee leads various posses after the suspects but never seems to be able to find them. In the meantime, McKee seems to have plenty of money to take care of his gorgeous daughter back home from schooling in the East.
When an Indian saves Ben Cartwright's life from a near fatal knife attack by another Indian, Ben later gives the Indian and his pregnant wife a strip of fertile farming land. Unfortunately the land is next to a very racist farmer and things turn deadly.
Jennifer Beale is abducted in the hopes her rich father, Joshua, the richest silver baron on the Comstock, will pay a $1M ransom. The plan unravels when the beautiful Della is killed and Hercules, who loves her, finds out who did it.
Dolly Kincaid is so fed up with her extremely dominant, controlling, sheriff father, that she runs away with her boyfriend. She later finds out he is the leader of some murderous bank robbers and when they kidnap Hoss and Joe, she still sticks with him.
Gunnar is a long-lost relative of the Cartwright family. When Gunnar arrives at the Ponderosa, the family takes him in for the evening. Gunnar is the brother to one of Ben Cartwright's late wives. Unbeknownst to the Cartwright family, Gunnar is also the leader of a band of criminals called The Comancheros. Little Joe is visiting his girlfriend away from the ranch. When Little Joe and his girlfriend are kidnapped by The Comancheros, the Cartwrights and Gunnar are forced into a difficult situation
About to set out on a cattle drive, Ben hires a young drifter named Sam Jackson as one of his drovers. What he doesn't know is that Jackson is really outlaw Johnny Logan, who signed on to the drive because he knew it was going to pass near the town of Waycross, and Logan is determined to kill the Waycross sheriff--who is also his father.
Adam rides up on some Indians trying to kidnap a white woman they believe to be white mountain woman spirit. He kills them but not before they wound him. The woman nurses him back to health but the rest of the tribe is still out there looking for her and their shaman believes she has the power to cure his tribe of a sickness they have.
Angry with the way a beautiful deaf girl is treated by her father, a sheepherder living in a remote mountain cabin, Little Joe takes it upon himself to teach her sign language so they can communicate better. His plan backfires when the young woman falls in love with him and the girl's brutish neighbor resents her lavishing attention on the youngest Cartwright.
Arnie is a lonely man with big muscles, a little brain and an ugly face. He is friendly by nature, but when somebody jeers at him and calls him an ape, he becomes mad. Then he is very dangerous. Most people avoid Arnie, but Hoss recognizes something of his own nature in Arnie and wants to help him
When 16-year-old Todd Grayson arrives from Boston to Virginia City, he is told that his father has been killed by Ben Cartwright. Ben shot Luke Grayson in self-defense, but Todd won't listen to this. The boy has only one thing in his head: to avenge his father by killing Ben Cartwright.
Hoss and Little Joe travel to Sacramento to help the widow of an old friend of the Cartwrights. Hoss discovers that the widow is a beautiful young woman and immediately falls in love with her. He brings her back to the Ponderosa where Adam and Little Joe soon discover that the woman is in love with Hoss's money, not him, which she needs to fund her gambling addiction. When Hoss refuses to believe his brothers, Adam is forced to provide demonstrable proof in Virginia City casino.
After Joe kills a man in self defense who tried to set fire to the Ponderosa to clear himself some land, he has to take his lively, feisty, wild, daughter home and she, and her relatives, are now determined to kill Joe.
A woman shows up to the Ponderosa claiming to have just married Ben. The problem is, Ben has never seen her before in his life! Adam West is a key player in this case of mistaken identity.
Hoss and Joe "rob" a bank for altruistic reasons and are pursued not by the law but by a more serious force, Ben and Adam.
Adam goes to Mexico to investigate the death of a friend, only to face hostile townspeople and the dead man's wife.
Hoss accidentally kills Willie the town drunk. His remorse may not be enough to stop Willie's hate-filled brother who only wants revenge even though the townspeople know it wasn't Hoss' fault.
Jock Henry is a very likeable fellow. Ask anyone. When he's given the job of collecting taxes, his peculiar methods of figuring out what people owe causes everyone to reconsider.
The Cartwrights deal with cattle rustlers.
Ross Marquette's behavior over the past few months can't be easily explained -- beating his wife, rustling cattle, robbing a stage, killing a man. Adam is determined to find out why his friend is acting so strangely before it's too late.
The Cartwrights challenge an arrogant and cruel British prizefighter, the Duke, and his alcoholic manager to a bout with John Heenan (the Benicia Boy), after the Cartwrights' meek friend J.D. gets pulverized by the Duke in a bar-fight. J.D. is adored by saloon girl Marge, but he has been too shy to return her affections. While the Cartwrights wait to see if Heenan will actually take the bout and come from San Francisco, the Duke pursues Marge and assaults her when she rebuffs him. When the manager comes to Marge's rescue, he too is beaten up by the Duke (who, it turns out, is the manager's brother). Infuriated by all this, Hoss Cartwright himself challenges the Duke, and knocks him out in the fourth round of a bare-knuckle fight refereed by Sheriff Roy Coffee. The Duke and his brother-manager reconcile in the humility of defeat, then learn that the Benicia Boy will accept the proposed bout, but only the Duke comes to San Francisco. The Duke apologizes to all he has offended while in Virginia City and heads west to fight Heenan.
Jed Trask has been with the Sierra Mail & Stage Lines for many years. When a group of gunmen in the town of Latigo cuts off delivery of the goods and mail, he goes after those responsible with the help of some on the Virginia City council - the Cartwrights.
Little Joe is off to buy a gift for his pa's birthday. He's unaware that where he is heading the local Indians are on the war path and they've got him in their gun sights.
Hoss suspects his rival for a woman's love was one of the masked vigilantes who hanged a man and his wife.
Hoss helps out a shy inventor who needs financial backing to build a horseless carriage. Things do not go well until a slick promoter sells shares into the new automobile. But things turn sour when the promoter skips town.
At the bedside of a seriously ill Adam, Ben thinks back to his days as a first mate on a sailing ship and his marriage to Adam's mother, Elizabeth Stoddard.
The Cartwrights join to help mystical blacksmith Sam Hill save the land his drunk, sea-dog father signed away to an old enemy, discover the circumstances behind his mother's death, and solve the mystery of why a tropical tree flourishes in spite of cold Nevada winters.
The brother of a man Hoss killed in self-defense says he understands but secretly plans revenge.
When their spring-fever antics injure miserly businessman, Jedediah Milbank, requiring recuperation at the Ponderosa, Ben orders each of his sons to carry out one of Mr. Milbank's seemingly simple tasks, unaware that they may prove impossible for the kind-hearted Cartwright boys to complete.
The Cartwrights must try to get help for Adam, seriously wounded by an Apache bullet, and find out why Cochise and his warriors have threatened to kill them all if they don't hand over an army captain taking refuge in their trail camp.
A man claiming to be the reincarnation of french poet Francois Villon and his sister get kicked out of the hotel. Joe and Hoss bring them to the Ponderosa where Joe falls in love with Francois' sister Eloise.
While in Rubicon, Joe is offered the position of sheriff. When he tells his family, they don't take him seriously which angers him, so he takes the job.
Hoss comes across a blind girl named Gabrielle who was recently orphaned when her parents died in an overturned wagon. When he brings her back to the Ponderosa, the Cartwright's set out to find her a loving home, but she has her sights set to go live with her grandfather: an old hermit who wants nothing to do with her or anyone else.
The Cartwrights play host to an eccentric old soldier friend of Ben's while trying to track down a mysterious swindler named Polk who is illegally deeding parcels of the Ponderosa to settlers looking for homesteads.
The woman that Hoss is smitten with turns down his marriage proposal when a stranger in town sweet talks her with the promise of excitement and adventure. However, Hoss soon discovers that the man is only after her money and is asked by her father to go save her after she runs away with the new man.
Bitterly disappointed in her husband's financial failures, genteel matriarch Deborah Banning travels to visit her friends on the Ponderosa, hoping to turn her family's fortunes around by marrying her only daughter off to a Cartwright son.
When Adam is a witness to a murderous armed robbery by masked assailants, he is absolutely convinced he knows who one of them is, but there's ultimately only one way to prove it.
While visiting the Ponderosa, Ben's old friend, sea Captain Matthew White, is forced to reveal a terrible secret after Little Joe Cartwright falls in love with and plans to wed the Captain's daughter, Laura, once a freckle-faced playmate from Joe's childhood in New Orleans, now grown into a beautiful woman.
The Cartwrights are dumbfounded when the mother of town drunk Danny Lynch arrives on the Ponderosa to see the land that her son apparently owns, as he said in letters to her. They seek out Danny to tell her the truth.
On his way home, Hoss stops for water at the house of drought stricken family member Jason Gant. While attempting to build a well it caves in on Jason and Hoss saves him. Afterwards Hoss is determined to help Jason strike water.
The Cartwrights go hunting for a gang of cattle rustlers. Adam comes across an injured man, Matthew Grant, who he assumes is one of the thieves. Knowing that Ben will shoot the criminal on sight, Adam tries to convince Grant to confess to his crimes and turn himself over to the authorities.
Tucson gunman, Jack Groat, swore to kill Sheriff Lem Partridge for putting him in prison after a bullet from Groat's gun during a drunken street brawl accidentally killed Sheriff Partridge's wife. Now, 10 years later and fresh out of prison, Groat has tracked retired Lem Partridge to Virginia City and is soon holding Lem's son, Jimmy, and good friend Ben Cartwright hostage. But things go bad and Ben must soon explain to Lem - and try to convince himself - that there was nothing he could have done that day to stop Groat from shooting Jimmy in the back.
The Cartwright boys help cowhand Hank romance reluctant teacher Abigail.
The Cartwrights may have to take the law into their own hands when Virginia City's temporary sheriff, rancher Asa Moran, uses his new badge as a license to kill.
The Cartwrights encourage young genius, Albert Michelson, to pursue his scientific experiments while trying to discover why schoolmaster, George Norton, expelled Albert from school and seems determined to stand in the way of his appointment to the prestigious Annapolis Naval Academy.
Little Joe is his family's only hope when he escapes from a kangaroo court that has framed the Cartwrights for a bank robbery and sentenced them all to hang.
A young stranger with a fast gun and questionable past shows up on the Ponderosa, and reveals he is a half-brother to Little Joe Cartwright (Michael Landon.)
Mexican freedom fighters loyal to Benito Juárez take over the Ponderosa, gravely wound Little Joe, and force Ben to guide them to a wagon train loaded with gold being smuggled to California by Emperor Maximilian.
A girl (Stefanie Powers) named Cal causes chaos on the Ponderosa and leads Little Joe into a confrontation with Doc Holliday. Trouble with a capital "T" that rhymes with "C" comes to Virginia City when Little Joe brings young Calamity Jane home to the Ponderosa after rescuing her from a deadly prairie raid.
Ben finds Hoss in the barn waiting for a mare to give birth. Ben can't help but remember that's how Hoss' mother (Inger) was. He then finds an old journal wherein he wrote down their trek West. While Hoss waits, Ben reads it and recalls how their trek was arduous. And Inger was pregnant with Hoss and they had to deal with Indians and a drunken wagon master.
Little Joe struggles with his conscience, trying to believe that his friend, Seth Pruitt, did the right thing after Seth admits to the mercy-killing of his fiancée's father when the man was in agony from a broken back and begging for death.
Ben's plans to wed widow Katherine Saunders are jeopardized after her son is accused of murder.
When Hoss catches spring fever, it takes a little old lady named "Looney" to help cure him.
Gold-panning immigrants are run off their claim. In need of money for the survival of their village, they kidnap Joe and hold him for ransom but their heart just isn't in it.
Candy becomes friend of a runaway soldier accused of desertion and murder. The two pals join forces to locate the real culprit.
A dapper old man rowing a boat across dry grazing land? That's the quixotic scene bewildering all of Virginia City—especially the Cartwrights, who lease the acreage and fear the gentleman may be engineering a swindle.
Joe searches for a professional fighter who can clear the name of Dusty Rhoades, who is sitting in jail, but Tom Callahan refuses to ever step foot in Virginia City ever again.
Little Joe helps an old-time sheriff escort cunning outlaw Hank Simmons to jail. The smooth talking Simmons kills the sheriff and injures Joe, but Joe turns out to always be one step ahead of Simmons.
