Cobden, Ontario

Cobden is a small community in the Township of Whitewater Region, in Renfrew County, Ontario, Canada. It is located roughly halfway between Renfrew and Pembroke on Highway 17.

The area around Cobden was originally inhabited by the Nibachis, a sub-division of the native, Algonquian speaking, tribes of North America.

In 1613, French explorer Samuel de Champlain, travelled through an area very near Cobden while exploring the Ottawa River. Due to the Chenaux Rapids, Champlain and his men were forced to portage. They presumably took shore in Browns Bay near present-day McKenzie's Hill. In 1953, a large rock was found in this area bearing a chiseled inscription. Though the inscription was hard to read, it was determined that it said, "Champlain Juin 2, 1613". Champlain's trail from this point is debatable. He may have cut straight across land to the southern tip of Jeffreys Lake, or he may have veered south, skirting the far side of what later came to be known as the Champlain Trail Lakes. It is known that he eventually made his way to Green Lake and at this point, according to several 19th-century authors, Champlain lost his astrolabe. It stayed there for 254 years, until it was found in 1867 by Edward George Lee, a 14-year-old farm boy helping his father clear trees near Green Lake (now Astrolabe Lake). Edward gave the astrolabe to Captain Cowley, a Steamboat Captain on Muskrat Lake; Lee never received the ten dollars Cowley promised him, and Cowley sold the astrolabe to his employer, President of the Ottawa Forwarding Company, R.W. Cassels. The astrolabe eventually passed to Samuel V. Hoffman of the New York Historical Society in 1942, remaining there for 47 years, until acquired by the Department of Communications for the Canadian Museum of Civilization in 1989.

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