Pembroke is a thriving little town of about 400 inhabitants, situated on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, ten miles south of Hopkinsville. Its founder was R. C. Jameson, who at first (about 1848-49) kept the post office in his private residence, but afterward built a storehouse at the junction of the Tobacco and Nashville roads to which he removed it. It has a score or more of business houses, a church, a flouring-mill, a planing-mill, two tobacco warehouses, a rehandling establishment, several shops, and last but not least two excellent schools. One of these, the Pembroke Male and Female Institute, is taught by Prof. E. J. Murphy, and has an average attendance of from thirty to forty pupils of both sexes; the other is also a mixed school, taught by Prof. V. A. Garnett, who has about the same number of scholars. Both schools include in their curriculum, music, presided over by Mrs. Peay, and all the branches of a scientific and literary course.
Of professional gentlemen, Pembroke boasts three lawyers, one of them an ex-State Senator, Hon. C. N. Pendleton, and seven physicians, Drs. W. H. Marshall, B. L. Leavell, J. 0. Brown, D. E. Bell, J. M. Robinson, and Robert and John Morrison. The town does a present business valued at $300,000, and gives promise of future and increased prosperity.
There are a number of excellent flouring-mills in the several precincts that do a large and flourishing business, but want of space forbids their mention. Like the other parts of southern Christian most of the lands are well adapted to the growth of corn and wheat, and keep the mills well supplied with grist.”
There are no special geological, topographical or agricultural features of these, that do not apply to all the other precincts of south Christian. The formations are of the ” cavernous limestone ” variety, the surface more or less undulating, and the soil generally adapted to the growth of all the cereals, tobacco, and the various grasses.