Czarnków

Czarnków grew at a meeting of routes between Poznań and Pomerania, beside the Noteć. Its early stronghold became a castellany, and the noble Nałęcz family, later known as the Czarnkowskis, received the town in the late thirteenth century. They built a castle recorded in 1331 and established town privileges before 1369. The family held Czarnków until the mid-seventeenth century; Protestant refugees from Silesia settled here during that century and helped develop clothmaking. Prussia annexed the town in 1772.