S01E01 Pilot (1)
In the late 1800s, John Murphy wanders into a wild mining town controlled by a local tycoon. Instant enmity is born, but the gritty Murphy joins a local miner and a homeless waif to work...
Father Murphy
Overview
A good-hearted frontiersman poses as a priest to start an orphanage for a group of kids whose homes have been destroyed by an evil mining manager.
Episodes
S01E02 Pilot (2)
S01E03 Eggs, Milk and a Dry Bed
A handsome but ineffectual priest joins the school and provides comic opposition to Murphy and a pair of brothers in the orphanage, one of whom has a bed-wetting problem.
S01E04 Establish Thou the Work of Our Hands
Murphy befriends an embittered black boy and teaches him a useful trade—wagon driving. But a wagon wreck causes the boy to lose the use of his hand, and Murphy must help him cope with living...
S01E05 A Horse from Heaven
Father Parker mistakenly trades some of the stock for a fast, beautiful horse... that no one can ride. He'd hoped to race it in the territorial fair to win the $1000 purse, but he's injured...
S01E06 By the Bear That Bit Me (1)
A mountain man deposits a young boy at the orphanage. The boy soon turns out to be a young girl, attracting the amorous attentions of young Ephram. When he feels rejected by her, Ephram runs...
S01E07 By the Bear That Bit Me (2)
Murphy and Eli must finally wade in to con the authorities into releasing the kids from the workhouse.
S01E08 False Blessings
Falling on hard times again, the school is seduced by an offer of ""state aid"" by a local official. Mae accepts the aid, only to learn that by doing so she has unwittingly agreed to...
S01E09 The Ghost of Gold Hill
Comic episode in which the son of the original owner of Gold Hill Mine comes back to reclaim the school. Mae and Murphy are worried until they discover he's harmless, loveable... and a little bit...
S01E10 Graduation
Claiming he's an orphan because his parents are dead, an old man joins the school to achieve a lifelong ambition... to learn to read and write. Comical conflict arises with Rodman and Tuttle, but the...
S01E11 Will's Surprise
When Will happens upon a large gold nugget, his drunk father shows up in town and kidnaps him, convinced the boys know where there's more. Will is locked in a dank root cellar and nearly...
S01E12 Eighty-Eight Keys to Happiness
Moses discovers that music is the key to reaching a withdrawn blind girl. But the only way the school can afford a piano is by letting a local entrepreneur use the saloon building temporarily as...
S01E13 Knights of the White Camelia
A runaway Southern boy, formerly a bugler in the rebel army, comes to the school and has trouble accepting Moses' status there. Simultaneously, undesirables in the area are forming a local K.K.K. chapter. The boy...
S01E14 The Parable of Amanda
Amanda, a pretty accomplice to a bank robbery, is in a stage wreck near Gold Hill while escaping from her crime. She dons the habit of a nun who died in the wreck to avoid...
S01E15 The Spy
When Rodman's unruly son is kicked out of boarding school, Rodman enrolls him at Gold Hill making him pose as an orphan in order to spy on the school, and he learns the secret of...
S01E16 The Heir Apparent
A wealthy widow with a railroad fortune comes to Gold Hill hoping to adopt a son to take over the family business. She's very taken with Will, who would rather stay with Murphy, but Murphy...
S01E17 In God's Arms
The death of an abandoned child drives Father Parker to forsake the priesthood. He moves to Jackson where the only job he can find is cleaning out the saloon. In his secular adventures he finds...
S01E18 The Dream Day
The orphanage stages an Open House for potential adopting parents, and this all-kid show examines the reactions of many of the children to finding new homes. Several of the kids find homes; our regulars are...
S01E19 Laddie
Lizette's heart is broken when Father Parker sells Laddie, an aging horse. When the kids learn the horse is bound for slaughter, Will leads them on an expedition to get her back, not realizing they're...
S01E20 Matthew & Elizabeth
Richard Garrett, the infamous twin of the villain from the pilot show, comes to Jackson to take over his late brother's empire. He doesn't reckon on resistance from Murphy when he tries to monopolize the...
S01E21 The First Miracle (1)
When a teenage girl falls in love with Murphy, it forces him to examine his own feelings for Mae and he proposes marriage. At the same time, Father Parker's attempts to build a church in...
S01E22 The First Miracle (2)
Emma feels rejected and in her upset state she divulges the secret of ""Father"" Murphy's identity to Rodman, causing the church to reverse its support for the new parish.
Cast
Merlin Olsen
John Michael Murphy
Moses Gunn
Kellie Martin
Flossie
Amanda Peterson
Elizabeth
Timothy Gibbs
Lisa Trusel
Katherine Cannon
Byron Thames
Ivy Bethune
Chez Lister
Charles Tyner
Scott Mellini
