Say Salem to an American and the answer is 1692. That year, in the grip of fear and bitter local feuds, a court in this small Massachusetts seaport condemned nineteen people to hang for witchcraft, and another man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death under stones for refusing to plead. The trials ended within a year, and in the decades afterwards the colony openly regretted them. Today the town leans into the story with witch museums, costumed guides and shops selling crystals, and in October it fills with so many visitors that the streets nearly seize up.
Look beyond the witches and Salem has a quieter and, to my mind, richer story. In the decades after independence it was one of the wealthiest ports in the young United States, with ships sailing to Sumatra, India and China, and merchants built handsome Federal-style houses along Chestnut Street that still make an elegant walk. Derby Wharf, now a national historic site, stretches into the harbour with a little lighthouse at its end, and the Peabody Essex Museum holds a big collection of Asian and maritime art that grew out of those voyages. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born here, worked in the old Custom House and set The House of the Seven Gables in a creaky, dark-timbered mansion that you can visit.
For a rider, Salem is a place to arrive at and leave from rather than to cruise through. The streets of the old centre are narrow and one-way, parking is a puzzle, and in October you should treat a weekend visit as a test of patience, with the traffic crawling in from Route 128. Weekday mornings and the off-season months are far kinder. The coast roads that lead from here, Route 127 and Route 1A, wander through Marblehead and Beverly toward Cape Ann, with stone walls, salt marsh and a sudden view of masts in a harbour.
Marblehead, a few minutes south, is a tight knot of old lanes around a yacht-crowded harbour and is worth the detour for the sea air alone. Fuel is easy in Salem and Peabody, and there is no shortage of chowder, fried clams, lobster rolls and bakeries; an old Salem candy shop sells the Gibraltar, a hard, ginger-flavoured sweet that dates back to the early nineteenth century and is more of an acquired taste than a treat. The sea breeze can be cool even in July, and winter is raw, with ice on the shaded bends.