David Soul and Here Come the Brides

               By Clay of Saranac, NY, Guest Contributor, and Chris Ayers

In a classic but not well remembered TV western, shown on ABC from 1968 to 1970, Here Come the Brides featured three brothers who ran a 1800's logging camp in Seattle, Washington Territory. David Soul, as Joshua Bolt, starred with Robert Brown (Jason), Bobby Sherman (Jeremy), and Bridget Hanley (Candy Pruitt) in logging adventures in northwest America after the Civil War.

In the first episode, hard-working lumberjacks were up-in-arms because there were so few women in their small community to court! Most of the men were threatening to quit and move away to a more desireable area. What to do?

Well, to entice women to come to their neck of the woods. It didn't take long for older brother, Jason Bolt, to seek out, locate, and bring a number of very eligible young maidens to the Bridal Veil Mountain Logging Camp near Seattle to pacify the loggers. With the subsequent exciting delivery of very alluring young ladies, the fun began. 

In Episode 14 of Season 1, The Firemaker, co-starring Monte Markham (Bass) as a possible arsonist who was eventually accused of starting deadly fires in the Bridal Veil Mountain forests. If left unchecked, this act could deystroy the local logging industry, not to mention the randy exploits of the boys attempting to conquer the young maidens.

Joshua, having broken his arm, was first to discover the disastrous ploy. Late one night, after the exhausted brothers had climbed into their beds, Joshua rolled over on his arm, groaning and waking up from the pain. In his union suit, he quietly climbed out of his cot and carefully tip-toed outside the tent, half asleep, so as not to awaken his sleeping brothers.

Bumping his head on a lantern just outside the flap of the tent...

...Joshua became fully awake to see extensive fire in the trees not far from camp. 

The more he stood there in his union suit gazing in wonder, the more he realized the fires were growing rapidly! 

But he wasn't the only one to view the danger. What was Bass, a Veil Mountain lumberjack, doing out here, fully dressed, in the middle of the night?!

But, no time to wonder about him. Joshua ran back to the tent and yelled for his brothers to wake up and come running! 

He grabbed a metal plate with his good hand and began loudly banging and yelling to alert the camp of the danger.

Jason and Jeremy, came rushing out of the tent, pulling on their clothes, to see what in the world was the alarm...

They were soon followed by the logging community, arriving in their long underwear, others half dressed. 

Jason set to work organizing the men into teams to fight the fire...

Joshua had run back to the tent to grab his pants as Swede ran up to Jason in his red union suit offering to help. 

But he told Swede to get some clothes on first. It was going to be a long, tough night. He sent Bass, already dressed, on his way to begin saving the trees.

It was then that Jason realized that Bass had already been fully dressed while all the rest of the crew had shown up ready to assist in putting out the fires, partially clothed or in just their underwear.   Hmmmm...

With the help up their men, will the Bolt boys be able to put out the forest fires in time to save the logging camp and Seattle itself?

You can find out by viewing this episode on line on several platforms including DailyMotion and YouTube.