The series initially starred veteran movie supporting actor Ward Bond as the wagon master, later replaced upon his death by John McIntire, and Robert Horton as the scout, subsequently replaced by lookalike Robert Fuller a year after Horton had decided to leave the series. The series was inspired by the 1950 film Wagon Master directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr. and Ward Bond, and harkens back to the early widescreen wagon train epic The Big Trail starring John Wayne and featuring Bond in his first major screen appearance playing a supporting role. Horton's buckskin outfit as the scout in the first season of the television series resembles Wayne's, who also played the wagon train's scout in the earlier film.
Where to Watch
Streaming, rent and purchase options
Episodes
1. The Willy Moran Story
Willy Moran, a drunk, is hired by a wagon as a driver. He is an army buddy of the Major, but is used as a fall guy by a member of the train who wants to rob it. When the battle starts, Willy uses his army skills to turn the battle.
2. The Jean LeBec Story
The train cannot get supplies after a member kills the son of the man who owns most of St. Joseph in self-defense. He escapes with the help of Flint but when he learns the train is still being denied supplies he returns to face hanging.
3. The John Cameron Story
John Cameron, from Philadelphia, heads west with his wife to start a new life. Her flirtatious ways may get the better of her when three trappers come into camp offering fresh buffalo and thinking she might be more available than she is.
4. The Ruth Owens Story
Ruth Owens remarries and is moving west with her new husband. When her brother comes looking for her, he stirs up trouble for her about her past and himself because he just killed a man.
5. The Les Rand Story
Les Rand, just released from prison for murder, goes back home to kill the man he held responsible; his father, the doctor. Meanwhile, Flint is there to fetch the doctor to help someone injured. Les vows that no one will stand in his way.
6. The Nels Stack Story
A pacifist since the war, Nels Stack stands up to any man prejudiced against another. When his own beliefs are tested in the face of an impending Indian attack against the wagon train, he has to decide who he is going to defend.
7. The Emily Rossiter Story
Emily Rossiter had a young daughter to care for. She met and married someone she felt she could trust. When she found out this was misplaced, getting the daughter away from him and into a better life becomes her main goal.
8. The John Darro Story
When the train picks up an abandoned drunk on the trail, he exposes John Darro to be the reviled coward John Thurman who abandoned a previous train during a massacre. Darro's young son Tommy is unable to cope with the truth.
9. The Charles Avery Story
Lieutenant Avery has a mission. Deliver a peace treaty and the chief's daughter. But he has a secret vendetta that may jeopardize everyone's hope for peace.
10. The Mary Halstead Story
Mary Halstead is in search of a son she gave up a long time ago. With months to live, she comes west on the trail of someone who could be her son, but he may also turn out to be a notorious outlaw.
11. The Zeke Thomas Story
The wagon train stops in a newly built town to get water they had always been able to get before for free. Wanting money now, and at a steep price, has the Major upset. Sending Flint also uncovers a wife of a passenger thought dead.
12. The Riley Gratton Story
Riley Gratton has always drifted from here to there, a smooth tongue getting him whatever he needed. When he tries to do the same with some folks on the Major's wagon train, what comes next may be the least of his worries.
13. The Clara Beauchamp Story
When a new officer and troops kill an Indian brave and the post commander's drunken bored wife insults the Chief, Flint is forced to act as a neutral agent between the Army and Indians and save the wagon train.
14. The Julie Gage Story
A head strong Julie Gage is determined to ride her wagon to California. Losing her pa to fever, many suitors step up to help but she'll have none of it until one comes down with fever himself and she's the only one who will tend to him.
15. The Cliff Grundy Story
Mortally wounded in a buffalo stampede, Cliff Grundy's friend Flint stays when the wagon train leaves. Manson says he will help but his reasons for staying become clear as Cliff keeps saying he has a goldmine somewhere and he's recovering.
16. The Luke O'Malley Story
Luke O'Malley is running from an outlaw who said he would kill him for turning him into the law. Since he won't believe he didn't do it, he takes his two kids and joins Adams' wagon train disguised as a parsons, who doesn't act like one.
17. The Jesse Cowan Story
The Cowans and Beals have been feuding a long time. Bob and Jesse return from the war and find their family dead and the Beals have joined a wagon train. Revenging their family is just the start of what Major Adams must now deal with.
18. The Gabe Carswell Story
Gabe Carswell wants his son to join the whites because of what he sees coming for the Indians. When his son refuses he takes him to the wagon train heading for California but the Arapaho are getting set to attack.
19. The Honorable Don Charlie Story
Don Charlie is a gambler and womanizer and makes no excuses for it. When he meets a woman who wants to marry him there may be trouble because the Major promised her uncle that she would make it safely to San Francisco.
20. The Dora Gray Story
Dora Gray has made some poor choices in her life. Just wanting to get to San Francisco, her latest one involves someone who sells army guns to the Indians and Flint finds himself right in the middle of it.
21. The Annie MacGregor Story
The MacGregor clan decides to come to America and start a new life. The wagon trains going to California have had a hard time dealing with their different customs. Can Major Adams' be any different?
22. The Bill Tawnee Story
Bill Tawnee served his country heroically. When Major Adams recognizes him on the trail and sees he is unable to wake, he asks his wife to join his wagon train even though there is plenty of anti-Indian sentiment afloat.
23. The Mark Hanford Story
Jack Hanford built his wealth to give his son. He turns it all down to honor his Cheyenne heritage when his mother dies. To make matters worse in his son's eyes, he had sent for a woman he briefly met to replace her even before she died.
24. The Bernal Sierra Story
Revolutionary Bernal Sierra joins the train finding the wife of his dead friend married to Casey Reardon who sold guns to the Mexican revolutionaries. Bernal is suspicious of Casey, his brothers, and Perdita over missing gold.
25. The Marie Dupree Story
A beautiful woman riding with the train likes flirting. When she gets mixed up with the wrong man, she strings along a boy on the train in order to make him jealous, playing one man's love against another's.
26. A Man Called Horse
Horse, a name he comes to be called, is searching for himself. Since he doesn't feel that he found it in Boston, where he grew up, he tries out west, under the watchful eye of a small tribe of Crow.
27. The Sarah Drummond Story
During a storm, Flint takes shelter at a farmhouse. He soon discovers the husband is refusing his wife the care of a midwife and before it's too late for her he needs to find out why.
28. The Sally Potter Story
Sally Potter hitches a ride on the wagon train but being pretty helps and hurts her. Someone she knew catches up to the train and wants to remind her of who she is and where she came from, possibly ruining what she wants for her future.
29. The Daniel Barrister Story
Faith is tested when a man's wife is injured and he refuses medical aid. When Flint rides to the nearest town to get a doctor, he finds they have their own problems: a smallpox epidemic.
30. The Major Adams Story (1)
During the Civil War Charlie Wooster joins Bill Hawks under the command of Major Seth Adams. When Adams is seriously wounded saving Hawks's life he must struggle to survive, while dreaming of the girl he left behind.
31. The Major Adams Story (2)
Years after the Civil War, Major Adams gets a second chance with his lost love Ranie, who had married in his absence. But happiness doesn't always come easy, as a sinister rival and a dark secret attest.
32. The Charles Maury Story
Disguised as Yank soldiers, a band of confederate marauders blend into the wagon train, planning on robbing everyone. They are at first stopped but a member of the train helps the man in charge when she discovers the truth to his identity.
33. The Dan Hogan Story
In a growing town, Seth meets a friend from his distant past. He remembers how they met and the circumstances bringing them west. When his friend's home is threatened, not ever wearing a gun surprisingly helps him rather than the reverse.
34. The Ruttledge Munroe Story
Ruttledge Munroe joins the wagon train on the trail. It's noticed right off his odd sense of humor but when he saves the major's life, it is forgotten until he kills someone else and the real reason he joined up is revealed.
35. The Rex Montana Story
On one final push to the west, a wild west showman runs into some old friends. Some that were part of a massacre that almost cost them their lives and one man his sanity.
36. The Cassie Tanner Story
Trail hardened Cassie Tanner joins the train, and sets her eye on Major Adams. But the train desperately needs horses, and she may be the only one who can make the dangerous journey to buy them.
37. The John Wilbot Story
Tensions are running high in the train between northerners and southerners traveling west. As trouble escalates one passenger with a noticeable limp, John Wilbot, is accused of being John Wilkes Booth, who many believe is still alive.
38. The Monty Britton Story
Low on water, Flint scouts for more. When three water holes are dry or poisoned, Fort Paiute seems their only hope but he has to make it back to the wagon train on foot and the only other man who knows the way is believed to be a deserter.
39. The Sacramento Story
At the end of a long journey, lives were lost. Some made it with their dreams intact. Flint tries to help two of the passengers with theirs and almost bites off too much. Politics are involved as well as unsolicited trips to the Far East.
Cast & Crew
John McIntire
Christopher Hale
Robert Fuller
Cooper Smith
Michael Burns
Barnaby West
Frank McGrath
Charlie Wooster
Terry Wilson
Bill Hawks
