Wagon Train

For the animal powered vehicles, see Wagon train. For the 1940 film, see Wagon Train (1940 film).

Wagon Train
Wagon Train cast (1964) with Robert Fuller and John McIntire
Also known as	"Major Adams, Trailmaster"; "Trailmaster"
Genre	Western
Starring	Ward Bond Robert Horton John McIntire Robert Fuller Michael Burns Frank McGrath Terry Wilson Denny Scott Miller
Theme music composer	Jack Brooks Sammy Fain Jerome Moross Henri René Stanley Wilson
Composer(s)	Lloyd R. Apperson
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	8
No. of episodes	284
Production
Executive producer(s)	Howard Christie Richard Lewis
Producer(s)	Howard Christie Richard Lewis Frederick Shorr
Running time	50 minutes (1957–63; 1964–65) 75 minutes (1963–64)
Production company(s)	Revue Studios (1957–63) Universal TV (1963–65)
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC (1957–62) ABC (1962–65)
Picture format	Black-and-white (1957–62; 1964–65) Color (1963–64) 4:3
Audio format	Monaural
Original run	September 18, 1957 (1957-09-18) – May 2, 1965 (1965-05-02)
Chronology
Preceded by	Wagon Master The Big Trail

Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65 (the network also aired daytime repeats, as Major Adams, Trailmaster and Trailmaster [post-1961 Ward Bond episodes] from January 1963 to September 1965). The show debuted at #15 in the Nielsen ratings, rose to #2 in the next three seasons, and peaked at #1 in the 1961–62 television season. After moving to ABC in the autumn of 1962, the ratings began to decline, and Wagon Train did not again make the Top 20 listing.

The series initially stars 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 (1930) starring John Wayne and featuring Ward 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.

Synopsis

The show chronicles the adventures of a wagon train as it makes its way from Missouri to California. There were 284 episodes: the first aired on September 18, 1957, and the final segment was broadcast on May 2, 1965. Some of the actors appearing on Wagon Train included Ward Bond as wagon master Major Seth Adams (seasons 1–4), Robert Horton as scout Flint McCullough (seasons 1–5), John McIntire as wagon master Christopher Hale (seasons 4–8), Robert Fuller as scout Cooper Smith (seasons 7–8), Denny Scott Miller as Duke Shannon (seasons 5–7), Michael Burns as Barnaby West (seasons 4–8), Frank McGrath as Charlie Wooster (cook, seasons 1–8), and Terry Wilson as Bill Hawks (seasons 1-8). McIntire replaced Bond as wagon master upon Bond's death at age 57, and Fuller replaced Horton as scout a season after Horton opted to depart, an obvious choice since Fuller had already played a lead in another western series (Laramie on NBC) and physically resembled Horton. Horton and Fuller even shared the same birthday, albeit nine years apart.

Ward Bond was billed above Robert Horton in the opening credits, but Horton was later billed above relative newcomer John McIntire, and McIntire and Fuller rotated top billing from episode to episode when Fuller joined the series in the seventh season. During the sixth season, Horton had left and Fuller had not yet replaced him, so McIntire carried the show with the supporting cast. Neither Bond nor McIntire, both veterans of dozens of supporting roles in films, routinely played the lead in theatrical films, although Bond did in at least one B-picture. Rivals Bond and Horton frequently quarreled on the set, an extensively publicized development at the time, lending an element of verisimilitude to their disputes within the episodes themselves.

The series aired for most of its run in black-and-white, except for five color episodes (4 October 1961 – Polly Bergen – "Kitty Albright Story", 1 November 1961 – Carolyn Jones – "Jenna Douglas Story", 6 December 1961 – Dana Wynter – "Lizabeth Ann Calhoun Story", 7 February 1962 – Gary Clarke – "Lonnie Fallon Story", and 14 March 1962 – Paul Fix – "Amos Billings Story") during the fifth season (1961–62) on NBC (to help promote the sales of parent company RCA's color television sets) and the entire seventh season (1963–64) on ABC of 75-minute color episodes. The series returned to its original 50-minute black-and-white format for its eighth — and final — season, damaging the ratings.

The series used the cut-down, shortened wagons common to television series budgets, as opposed to the full-length oxen-drawn Conestoga wagons prominent in a forerunner of the show, the 1930 wagon train film The Big Trail, which features 27-year-old Ward Bond (occasionally film clips from Hollywood movies, showing a train of Conestogas, were edited into the episodes).

Backstories of the characters

Like Rawhide and most western television series of the 1950s and 1960s, the show is set a few years after the American Civil War, but whereas there were few Indians in Rawhide, they often turned up in Wagon Train, causing the wagons to form a circle. In "The Major Adams Story" it is explained that Seth Adams had commanded a militia group (apparently in Philadelphia) and they enlisted en masse in the Union Army in 1861, that Bill Hawks was Sergeant to Major Adams and that Wooster was a late enlistment as a private (in various episodes it's mentioned that their regiment was under Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant). However, a different story in "The Colter Craven Story" (season 4), we are told that in 1860 Adams and Hawks were partners in a lumber enterprise in Galena, Illinois, and on the eve of the Civil War, Adams headed up the 2nd Illinois Volunteers - although without a bit of military knowledge - and was given guidance by old friend "Sam", then a resigned former captain and a civilian but subsequently General of the Army U.S. Grant, who - encountering Adams again after the battle of Shilo - gave him a battlefield promotion from Lieutenant to Major. Wooster was no good at anything else, so became a cook in the army; in the first episode he was clean-shaven, but he quickly grew a beard. McCullough had previously been a stagecoach driver. Normally, each episode was the story of one person, after whom that episode was named, and their problems were resolved through the episode. In a first-season episode Adams says the war has been over for five years (suggesting the first season takes place in 1870, although, in "The Major Adams Story", part 1, it is clear that Adams had taken trains west in previous years). In season two, reference is made to the war ending six years earlier (1871) and to the presidential nomination of Ulysses S. Grant (1868), a neighbor of Adams before the war and eventually his commanding officer. In season three (in "The Vincent Eaglewood Story") Grant and Colfax are identified as the current President and VP, which dates it as Grant's first term (March 1869 to March 1873). "The Bernal Sierra Story" (first season) made extensive reference to the ongoing revolution in Mexico pitting Benito Juarez against Maximillian I of Mexico (aka Emperor Maximilian)--but that uprising ended decisively with Maximillian's capture and execution in 1867. "The Cathy Eckhardt Story" (fourth season, broadcast November 9, 1960) clearly shows the year is 1870, but in "The Charlene Brenton Story" (late third season, broadcast 8 June 1960) reference is made to Bill Hawks' having read the novel Ben-Hur, which was not published until 1880. The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, following approximately the same route as a wagon train from St. Joseph to Sacramento. This would have made wagon trains obsolete by the time most episodes in the series take place; however, little reference is made to railroads in the West during the series.

In "The Sacramento Story", which was the last episode in the first season, the wagon train finally arrives in California after a three-month journey. Some stars from earlier episodes appear. At the end of the show, Flint McCullough has his $400 pay for the journey, says his goodbyes and rides off. Adams knows he'll spend the money on girls, do a number of jobs when it is gone, and then find another wagon train for which to scout. With all the other wagons gone, there is just Adams, Hawks and Wooster. They plan to take a ship back around the tip of South America and back to Boston. Instead, in the first episode of the second season, the trio is shanghaied (kidnapped and forced to join the crew of a ship) in San Francisco but jump ship in New Orleans and end up back in St. Joseph, Missouri, with McCullough ready to take another train west. In later seasons the series was more episodic and paid less attention to the progress of the train along its route over the course of the season.

The season-two episode "The Last Man" (episode 10, trans 11 Feb 1959) guest-starred Dan Duryea as the half-crazed sole survivor of a "lost" wagon train that had vanished in a snowed-in pass a year earlier; Adams and McCullough, in a jointly featured story, now face their train being condemned to an identical fate, as their wagons are similarly stalled alongside the "dead" train. It is not stated but implied that the sole survivor had to resort to cannibalism as people died off in order to survive -- this grim episode was based on an actual wagon train disaster (the Donner Party) in 1846, and the scenario was eerily repeated later by plane crash survivors in the Andes in 1972.

From season two some episodes were also denoted: "Tonight Starring . . . " after the initial credit for the two stars and show title were put up; these were the individual featured episodes of either Ward Bond or Robert Horton. Bond's tales normally were set on the train, while Horton's would usually involve the scout having ridden on ahead away from the train.

We learn of Major Adams' Civil War background, plus Wooster and Bill Hawks' association with him, all in the Union Army, in the two-part "Major Adams Story" (season one, episodes 30, 31 trans 23 and 30 April 1958) which begins with Adams stopping to visit the grave of a lady love, then goes into a flashback. "The Flint McCullough Story" (season two, ep 15 trans 14 Jan 1959) is also largely a flashback to his Civil War exploits in the Confederate Army, as Flint learns he will once again meet his former ruthless commanding officer who is responsible for war crimes, and whom McCullough vowed to kill if he ever tracked him down; at the episode's conclusion we return to the present and the ex-officer turns up, only for a shocked McCullough to discover that a massive stroke has left the man virtually a vegetable -- a "punishment" appeared to have already been handed down by a higher authority.

After Ward Bond's sudden death on 5 November 1960, several episodes featuring him were still shown, but one episode was held back, with Robert Horton then carrying the lead. Episodes crediting but not featuring both Bond and his replacement John McIntire were then alternated for a time until the final Ward Bond episode was screened as a tribute to him ("The Beth Pearson Story", season four, ep 22, trans 22 Feb 1961), then a few weeks later McIntire actually debuted as the new wagonmaster in 'The Christopher Hale Story' (ep 25, trans 15 March 1961) in a tale where the train--without any on-screen explanation of the Major's absence--is awaiting the arrival of a new wagonmaster. Hale, a retired wagonmaster whose family has been massacred, has just joined the train as a traveler; guest star Lee Marvin then arrives as the quickly unpopular sadistic new wagonmaster, who ultimately gets his just desserts after a confrontation with Hale, and by the end of the tale Hale is invited to take over as the new wagonmaster, a post he accepts. John McIntire had earlier guested in an episode during the Bond era of the show, "The Andrew Hale Story" (season two, episode 35, trans 3 June 1959), playing a character possibly related to his later regular role as Christopher Hale.

One of the last Ward Bond episodes, The River Crossing, broadcast in December 1960, offer some insights. Reference is made to a terrible accident that occurred to a wagon in one of Adams's wagon trains five years earlier, and Adams reminds Wooster that they've crossed this spot at least a dozen times before, which suggests they've worked together on wagon trains for at least a dozen years. A cloudburst forces about fifty wagons to wait on one side of the river and this is spoken of as "half the train", suggesting the entire wagon train has about a hundred wagons (only about a dozen ever appeared on the screen at once). McCullough mentions that twenty years ago, as a youth, he was accompanying the famous plainsman Jim Bridger. Another episode aired a few months later ("The Path of the Serpent" Feb. 1961), expanded this by saying that Jim Bridger essentially adopted McCullough as a small boy and raised him almost as if he were his son.

Later both "The Duke Shannon Story" (season four, ep 30, trans 26 April 1961) and "The Barnaby West Story" (season six, ep 37, trans 5 June 1963) introduce further regular cast members, although the sudden departure of Robert Horton's original co-lead character Scout Flint McCullough following the show's move from NBC (Revue studios) to ABC (Universal studios) in 1962, was never explained on screen.

Cast

• Ward Bond – Major Seth Adams (1957–61, seasons 1-4). Bond died of a heart attack at age 57 on November 5, 1960, in the middle of the fourth season, and was replaced by John McIntire as wagon master. No explanation was ever given on the show.
• Robert Horton – Flint McCullough (1957–62, seasons 1-5)
• John McIntire – Christopher Hale (1961–65, seasons 4-8)
• Robert Fuller – Cooper Smith (1963–65, seasons 7-8)
• Frank McGrath – Charlie Wooster (1957–65, seasons 1-8)
• Terry Wilson – Bill Hawks (1957–65, seasons 1-8)
• Michael Burns – Barnaby West (1960–65, seasons 6-8)
• Denny Miller – Duke Shannon (1961–64, seasons 5-7)

Notable guest stars

Guest stars Dan Duryea and Jane Wyman with John McIntire, 1962.

• Roscoe Ates appeared in the 1958 episode "The Sacramento Story" in his later familiar role of "Old Timer".
• Claude Akins appeared during the show's first four episodes
• William Bendix played a sea captain who'd shanghaied Adams in "Around the Horn" in the second season.
• Another episode--"The Dr. Denker Story", season five, ep14--features Theodore Bikel as a traveling musician who is transporting a mysterious shipment of dynamite to San Francisco for the Army.
• Ernest Borgnine played Willy Moran in the pilot episode, broadcast September 18, 1957, then reprised the role the following season in "Around the Horn." Major Adams had fought with Moran at Gettysburg in the American Civil War
• Lon Chaney, Jr. appeared as Louis Roque in "The Jose Morales Story", Season 4, episode 5.
• Lou Costello appeared as the title character in one of his last roles, "The Tobias Jones Story" (1958). It was written by Harry Von Zell, the announcer and comedian from the Burns and Allen television series, who also appeared in that episode. Von Zell also appeared in the 1964 episode "The Link Cheney Story".
• Walter Coy, one of the narrators of the 1955-56 Frontier anthology series on NBC, appeared five times on Wagon Train between 1957 and 1964.
• Yvonne Craig guest-starred in "The Link Cheney Story" (1964).
• Ronnie Dapo, then a child actor, appeared in the episode "The Greenhorn Story". He was later a regular on Room for One More and The New Phil Silvers Show.
• Bette Davis appeared in three episodeas as different characters; as Bettina May (1961), Ella Lindstrom (1959) and Madame Elizabeth McQueeny (1959).
• Laraine Day appeared as the elderly accuser in "The Cassie Vance Story" episode.
• Angie Dickinson as Clara in "The Clara Duncan Story", 1959
• Charles Drake played the title character in the 1964 episode, "The Link Cheney Story".
• Ron Foster appeared twice in the 1957 episodes "The John Cameron Story" and "The Julia Gage Story".
• Eduard Franz appeared in the lead in 1957 in "The Les Rand Story", and James Philbrook had a minor role in the same episode.
• Nina Foch appeared as the title character in "The Clara Beauchamp Story"
• Tom Greenway appeared as Dr. Quinn in "The Dan Hogan Story" (1958).
• Peter Helm appeared three times on Wagon Train in 1962 and 1963: "The Daniel Clay Story", "The Wagon Train Mutiny", and in the title role "The Tom O’Neal Story", with Myron Healey cast as his father.
• Dwayne Hickman appeared in the title guest-starring role in "The Clay Shelby Story" in December 1964. Celia Kaye played Ann Shelby, and Richard Carlson and Mort Mills were cast as military officers.
• Darby Hinton, a child actor, appeared in March 1964 as Benjie Diel in the 75-minute episode "The Ben Engel Story".
• Brad Johnson and Susan Oliver in the title role appear in the November 9, 1960, episode "The Cathy Eckhardt Story", with Johnson cast as Will Eckhardt.
• I. Stanford Jolley appeared ten times, not in the lead role of an episode.
• Carolyn Jones appeared during the show's first 4 episodes.
• Peter Lorre as the title character in "The Alexander Portlass Story" (March 1960).
• Dayton Lummis appeared in three episodes: as Maj. Barham in "The Martha Barham Story" (NBC, 1959), as T.J. Gingle in "The John Turnbull Storey" (NBC, 1962) and as the Rev. Philip Marshall in "The Myra Marshall Story" (ABC, 1963), with Suzanne Pleshette in the title role.
• Lee Marvin appeared as Mexican bandit Jose Morales in the Season 4 episode "The Jose Morales Story." 20 episodes later he appeared as newly-hired wagonmaster Jud Benedict in the Season 4 episode that introduced the Chris Hale character, "The Christopher Hale Story"
• Tyler McVey appeared six times on Wagon Train, including a two-part 1960 episode "Trial for Murder".
• Joyce Meadows appeared three times: as Martha Williams in "The Conchita Vasquez Story" (1959), as Rheba Polke in "The Jed Polke Story" and as Melaine in "The Artie Matthewson Story" (both 1961).
• Ralph Meeker appeared in the title role of "A Man Called Horse" (season one, ep 26, trans 26 March 1958) in a story that served as the basis for the Richard Harris film A Man Called Horse a decade later.
• Read Morgan appeared three times: as Ben Denike in "The Vincent Eaglewood Story" with Wally Cox in the title role (1959), as Curly Horse in "The Martha Barham Story" with Ann Blyth (1959) and as Jake in "The Myra Marshall Story".
• Leonard Nimoy has appeared at least twice--once as an Indian and once as one of three Mexican brothers.
• Prolific western actor Gregg Palmer appeared in three episodes: as Groton in "The Mary Halstead Story" (1957), as Paul Dawson in "The Riley Gratton Story" (1957) and as Raleigh in "The Jose Morales Story" (1960).
• John M. Pickard appeared as Jed Otis in the 1959 episode "The Matthew Lowry Story".
• Ronald Reagan, in one of his final acting roles prior to his entering politics, played Capt. Paul Winters in the seventh-season episode "The Fort Pierce Story," first broadcast in September 1963.
• Michael Rennie appeared during the show's first four episodes.
• Mickey Rooney guest starred as a "greenhorn" in "Wagons Ho!"
• Pippa Scott guest-starred in "The Link Cheney Story" (1964).
• Tom Simcox guest-starred in "The Link Cheney Story" (1964).
• Paul Stader guest-starred in "The Link Cheney Story" (1964).
• Dean Stockwell appeared during the show's first four episodes.
• Karl Swenson played mountain man Jim Bridger in "The Jim Bridger Story". Francis De Sales also appeared in the episode as Mark.
• Franchot Tone appeared in the lead role in "The Malachi Hobart Story" as a traveling preacher who loses confidence in his own Christian message.
• Johnny Washbrook appeared as Tommy Peeks in "The Swift Cloud Story", with Rafael Campos in the 1959 title role, and as Ron Pearson in "The Beth Pearson Story", with Virginia Grey in the 1961 title role.
• John Wayne appeared briefly in a long shot in the episode directed by John Ford, "The Coulter Craven Story", portraying Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and billed under the pseudonym "Michael Morris", a reference to Wayne's real name, Marion Michael Morrison. Several other regulars from The John Ford Stock Company also appeared. This episode was shown 18 days after Ward Bond's death, and is the only episode in this series directed by Ford. Wayne also played Sherman under Ford's direction in the movie How the West Was Won and was billed as "Michael Morris" for a Ford-directed cameo in the James Stewart television anthology show Flashing Spikes (1962).
• Michael Winkelman, as he joined the cast of The Real McCoys also appeared as "Ben" in the first episode of Wagon Train, "The Willy Moran Story", with Ernest Borgnine in the title guest-starring role as a former boxer consumed by alcohol.
• Shelley Winters appeared during the show's first four episodes.
• Harry von Zell guest-starred in "The Link Cheney Story" (1964) and "The Tobias Jones Story" (1958).
• The episode "Alias Bill Hawks", available on DVD, is a story of townspeople covering for a murder and trying to dig a needed artesian well. Terry Wilson, as the real "Bill Hawks", arrives to put the puzzle together. Ed Nelson guest stars.

Theme music

The first season theme "Wagon Train" was written by Henri René and Bob Russell, and lyrics were not used. The theme was conducted by Revue musical director Stanley Wilson. In the second season, a new more modern sounding theme was introduced. "Roll Along) Wagon Train" was written by Sammy Fain and Jack Brooks and sung by Johnny O'Neill. About midway through the second season this was replaced with an instrumental version by Stanley Wilson. In the third season a more traditional sounding score was introduced. "Wagons Ho!" was written and conducted by Jerome Moross, who adapted it from a passage of music he had written for the 1959 film the Jayhawkers. This theme would last through the series' run and is the most remembered Wagon Train theme. Stanley Wilson re-recorded "Wagons Ho!" for the last two seasons.

Daytime network repeats, syndication and DVD releases

When the original Ward Bond episodes were broadcast weekday afternoons on ABC beginning in 1963, a new series title and theme would have to be used to separate the two airings and avoid viewer confusion because Wagon Train was still on the ABC evening schedule. Trailmaster was the name given and a new theme song, the "Trailmaster Theme," was written and conducted by Stanley Wilson. The 50-minute episodes entered syndication under this title, eventually reverting to its original title. The 75-minute episodes were usually syndicated separately, sometimes shown on local stations as "movies".

On January 1, 2011, the Encore Western Channel began airing the series, starting with a marathon of episodes, then airing Monday-Friday after The Virginian.

DVD releases

Timeless Media Group has released the first four seasons on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. The fifth season will be released on May 1, 2012.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date
The Complete First Season	30	December 15, 2009
The Complete Second Season	30	November 23, 2010
The Complete Third Season	30	May 17, 2011
The Complete Fourth Season	38	October 25, 2011
The Complete Fifth Season	37	May 1, 2012

External links

• Wagon Train at the Internet Movie Database
• Wagon Train at TV.com
• Wagon Train at epguides.com