Green Energy, Golden Returns

A sepia toned photo of the Haboldt Gas Engines showing the main two storey building on North Street to the left and the machine and fabrication building attached to it which dropped steeply down to the edge of the stream. A separate building to the right and in the foreground housed the foundry before it was replaced with a new dome roofed building.

Hawboldt machine shop North Street

When Hawboldt relocated his business to the North Street property he had purchased several years earlier, he seized the opportunity to utilize an adjacent free-running brook that flowed from the interior of Lunenburg County and emptied to the Back Harbour. The brook itself was hardly six-feet wide but it provided enough water to generate power through a turbine running beneath the manufacturing business. Hawboldt built a concrete reservoir outside the building to collect water from the flowing brook which ensured he had a steady supply of water for his manufacturing and foundry operations.

Frank Hawboldt, a son and successor to Forman as plant manager, estimated that using ‘green’ water power cut his electricity bill by $500 a year. When the brook ran high, energy was free. When the brook ran dry, standby motors were used to generate power by conventional means.

A colour photo with boats in the foreground looking from Mill Cove toward Hawboldt Gas Engines showing the old stone bridge, the red rounded foundry, machine shop and main office. A building on the left of the bridge was a storage building and the red buildings at the other end of the bridge were a woodworking shop. The stream came from Stanford Lake powering the foundry and supplying water for the village water system and empting into Mill Cove under the old stone bridge.

Mill Cove looking toward Hawboldt Gas Engines showing the old stone bridge

Chester Municipal Heritage Society

Forman Hawboldt: A Forward Thinker Water for Tourists