A night's experience during the building of the first aboideau was long remembered by the family at Prospect.The following is the only reference made to it in the journal: "June 7th, 1804--The sluice went adrift; was up to Nappan." On the 9th: "Got back as far as Cumberland;wind favorable in coming back."
The sluice referred to is a large wooden box or waterway, which is placed near the centre of the aboideau and as near as possible in the bed of the river.The great height of the tides, and the rapid current that runs up and down the stream twice in twenty-four hours, make it a most difficult operation to get one of these sluices bedded.The sluice would be about fifty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and five or six feet deep.
The men were hard at work after the sluice had been got into its place, trying to make it secure with the weight of mud, but the tide coming too quick for them lifted it out of its bed.Four of the Trueman boys sprang on the sluice as it floated down the river, in the hope of saving it in some way.It proved, however, to be a most unmanageable craft, and they could do little to stay their course down the river, and in spite of every effort were carried out into the Basin.Night came on and their only chance of safety was, if possible, to stick to the plank box in the hope that the currents might carry them to some point where they could get safely to shore.Next day their unwieldy craft grounded near Nappan, and they at once landed and were hospitably entertained at a farm-house near by.After getting supplies and sending word to Prospect of their safety, they again boarded their strange vessel and succeeded that day in getting back to the mouth of the river, and finally back to their starting point.