In 1840 he settled in the Heytesbury forest area on a small creek not far from where the present day Cobden lies.

[4] When the town was surveyed in 1861 the area had to be renamed because there was already a place named Lovely Banks in west Geelong.

In April 1892 a railway was established from Camperdown thru Cobden to Timboon, a plan to extend the line to Port Campbell was never built, the train carried out timber and came back loaded with produce and provisions.

Today the factory still operates, owned by Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd, and houses the largest milk drying plant in Australia.

Part of the reason for the rich soil that surrounds Cobden is its convenient location on the southern border of the Lakes and Craters Country, the fourth largest volcanic plain in the world.