
The first mention of Kargopol in written sources dates back to 1380. In the Nikon Chronicle there is a mention of the fact that the Kargopol prince Gleb brought his squad under the banner of the great Moscow Prince Dmitry Donskoy and participated in the Kulikovo battle. The city of Kargopol itself (in the old acts of the Cargo Field) was mentioned in 1447, when Dmitry Yuryevich Shemyak found refuge here, fleeing from the persecution of Grand Duke Vasily the Dark. There is no doubt that Kargopol was founded much earlier than the end of the XIV century. The banks of the Onega River, one of the paths in Pomorie, were occupied by Novgorod colonists already in the 12th century, and in the middle of the 14th century monasteries appeared. Apparently, initially the Kargopol settlement depended on the Belozersky principality, and later came under the authority of the Novgorod Republic.
In the XVI century, Kargopol was a significant trading city. A new jail was erected, a posad was built up. In 1506, Grand Duke Ivan III handed over Kargopol to his son Vasily according to his will. In 1539, the city received a diploma, which presented it with broad rights to local self-government. Through Kargopol there was trade with Pomorie salt and fish. The tsarist letters gave the city privileges in the salt trade, while the residents of Vologda and Beloozer had no right to go to the sea and had to buy salt in Kargopol. In addition to salt, local merchants rafted wood, bought up furs, supplied iron. The surroundings of the city were rich in deposits of iron ore.
In 1765 another fire occurred in Kargopol, remaining in the history of the city as “great”. The fire, according to eyewitnesses, was so strong that "the logs threw over the river." The urban buildings, mostly wooden, were completely burnt out, and stone buildings were badly damaged.
In the 19th century, Kargopol was already a small deaf town with a population of 2,680 people according to the 1897 census. And only the magnificent white-stone temples, towering above the wooden houses, now recall its former greatness.