Division mourns the loss of former John Dickinson Plantation site interpreter Bill Pool
Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs staff members are mourning the loss of Zadoc “Bill” Pool, a former historic-site interpreter at the John Dickinson Plantation, who passed away on July, 8, 2019.
Pool was born in Wilmington, Del. in 1923 and moved to Dover, Del. in 1953 to begin a 35-year career with Prentice-Hall, Inc. Beginning in the late 1980s and continuing through the early 2000s, he worked at the John Dickinson Plantation where he was known for conducting highly entertaining site tours and for excelling at all forms of period demonstrations including firing a musket, candle dipping, chopping wood, making shingles and pegs, tending the herb garden and working in the smokehouse.
Other highlights of Pool’s career at the site include portraying John Dickinson at “A Day in the Life of the John Dickinson Plantation” and Delaware Attorney General Gunning Bedford, Jr. in the play, “The Trial of William White,” about one of the plantation’s tenants who was accused of murder.
According to Gloria Henry, the plantation’s site manager, Pool was “a ‘jack of all trades’ and a true gentleman who really wanted to tell the story of the plantation and the people who lived and worked there.”
Go to the following for more information on the life of Bill Pool.