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This article was provided courtesy of www.travelwritersmagazine.com/TravelFeaturesSyndicate

Salem: America’s Spellbinding Seaport City

By Karen Rubin

Witchcraft is only a small part of the amazing story.

We were expecting hokus pokus. What we got during our recent visit to Salem, Massachusetts, was a stirring history lesson, one that resonates today. The 1692 Witch Trials for which Salem has only relatively recently become infamous (the city had all but forgotten that part of its history), gives Salem a unique dimension. But Salem also brings other aspects of American history to life in a way that will enthrall young and old alike. This is not just textbook history; you actually look into the faces of the people whose stories are being told-through the wax figures; the portraits, furnishings and artifacts in the historic homes and museums; and the costumed interpreters who further bring the struggles of the early settlers to life.

We soon became immersed in the history of the Salem Witch Trials-a subject with which we were only slightly familiar before-but we found Salem`s other aspects, its importance as a Colonial seaport and its rich cultural heritage, for example, equally compelling. The visit to the House of Seven Gables, which so inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne (who also was a living link to the Witch Trials), the Salem 1630 Pioneer Village with costumed interpreters, and the Peabody-Essex Museum, which started with a contest for the "most interesting" items that the ship captains could find to bring back, make Salem a world-class destination and a microcosm of America.

Salem is a city of ironies and of profound significance to how America came to be what it is. The Witch hysteria-a period of 13 months during which 19 people were hanged, one man crushed to death and hundreds imprisoned in deplorable conditions--contributed to America`s insistence on "separation of church and state," and also the fundamental right of "innocent until proven guilty." It also has contemporary significance because of the episodes throughout history of similar "witch hunts," such as during the McCarthy Anti-Communist trials and the post-9/11 hysteria.