[1] Cobb left home when he was 18 and moved to Vigo County, Indiana in 1832, where he started a keelboat freighter service between towns on the Wabash River.
Cobb then returned to Grand Rapids on the Wabash River in Knox County, Indiana, where he raised and sold a crop of corn.
[2] He returned to Madison, Indiana where his mother and family were living, and moved them to Tippecanoe County, where he continued to farm and operate a keelboat until spring of 1836.
[1] Cobb next moved with his mother, two sisters and brother to Bloomington (now Muscatine) in Iowa Territory on the bank of the upper Mississippi River.
He decided to move to Texas, and reached Arkansas where he fell sick with the "white swelling" (tuberculous arthritis), which left him somewhat crippled for life.
They reached Salt Lake City on 17 August 1850, and stayed there several months due to the health of Esther Cobb.
[1] In 1853 an Indian treaty was overturned, freeing a large area of land for settlers in what is now Lake County, California.
[2] They planted an orchard and a garden on the east bank of Nutmeg Creek, about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) west of what is now Little Red Schoolhouse.
Once a year they made the journey by oxcart to Napa, which took five days each way, to sell excess farm produce, butter, cheese and chickens and to buy supplies.
He moved with his wife and younger children into the Stone House in Coyote Valley, which had been abandoned, and farmed there for about three years.
[1] The Great Registry of Voters described John Cobb in 1868 as age 52, 5'10½", sandy complexion, blue eyes, gray hair.
His adult sons obtained titles to various parcels of adjoining land, and eventually the family owned most of the small valley.
[6] He is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery in Lower Lake with his wife Esther, son William and daughter Hester.