Bonanza

- Season 1

(1959)

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.

The Cartwrights go up against two San Francisco men who plan to get rich by killing off the antelope herds--which the Indians rely on for their food--and selling the meat to Virginia City's swarms of silver miners.

The Cartwrights discover an old enemy killing steers on the Ponderosa. Their camp has a sickly woman who needs to get to the high desert country. When an innocent man is killed, Ben decides to boot them all back to California but he gets resistance from the others in the camp and some local miners who now believe Ben is hiding gold.

In order to escape punishment for mistreating two Paiute women, a trader blames it on Adam Cartwright. The Paiutes seize Adam and make him a hostage as war erupts between the tribe and a local 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 in love with an older woman, the owner of the town's saloon/brothel, much to the chagrin of his family, moralizing town leaders, and creating a rival for her affection.

Feisty Annie O'Toole comes to Nevada with her old Da (aka "Himself") to mine silver and winds up feeding the silver miners, shanghaiing Adam Cartwright to be her partner in her tent-kitchen ("The Square Meal") and to be her attorney in Miner's Court when an old enemy challenges her right to her claim.

Philip Diedesheimer, a Pied Piper, is refused payment after he saves Virginia City's silver mines from a cave-in.

When threatened by a man fraudulently sold a part of the Ponderosa by a Henry T.P. Comstock, the Cartwrights remember when they first met the silver-tongued claim-jumper and his scheme that laid the foundation of Virginia City.

When an actress named Adah Menken comes into town, Ben considers marrying her, but his sons have other ideas. Meanwhile, trouble arrives when Adah's old lover, washed-up heavyweight boxer John C. Regan, comes along seeking his former glory.

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.

Little Joe and Adam join a posse bent on catching the murderers of Vannie Johnson. The longer they take to catch them, the more whipped into a lynching party they become, much to the liking of the grieving widower.

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.

A beautiful sister causes trouble around town.

Joe and Hoss shelter a pregnant Indian from a blizzard -- and Shoshones ordered to find her.

After tangling with bandits on the way to California to buy a prized 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.

Hoss and Little Joe are mistaken for bloodthirsty hired killers in a small Texas town dominated by two feuding families.

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.

Inspector Leduque comes from New Orleans to Virginia City to take Ben Cartwright back for a 20-year-old 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 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.

An English couple comes to Ponderosa on vacation, but the wife slowly makes it clear that she is disappointed that her husband, a great hunter and "action man" is becoming more peaceful, and not the man she married, though things may change for her after they are kidnapped for ransom along with Adam Cartwright.

While in San Francisco, two of Ben's hired hands get shanghaied and so does Ben in the process of looking for them.

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.

While hunting a predator wolf, Little Joe finds a gypsy woman who has been rejected from her people because she is believed to be a witch.

When a powerful gang plagues Virginia City with a murderous protection racket, the Cartwrights are determined to stop it even as it threatens them.