fail; a sale to John Wanamaker followed. This prompted Hilton to pledge a thousand dollars to Jewish charities, a gesture mocked by the satirical magazine Puck. Hilton was also castigated by Henry Ward Beecher (who knew Seligman) in a sermon entitled "Gentile and Jew". After praising Seligman's character, Beecher said, "When I heard of the unnecessary offense that has been cast upon Mr. Seligman, I felt no other person could have been singled out that would have brought home to me the injustice more sensibly than he." Whether or not Seligman meant to be turned away from the hotel to cast a light on growing antisemitism in America, the resulting publicity emboldened other hoteliers to exclude Jews, placing advertisements saying "Hebrews need not apply" and "Hebrews will knock vainly for admission". Death He died on April 25, 1880 in New Orleans, Louisiana. His body was returned to New York City and he was buried in Salem Fields Cemetery on May 4, 1880. Family Joseph Seligman's siblings were, in order of birth, William (born Wolf), James (born Jacob), Jesse (born Isaias), Henry (born Hermann), Leopold (born Lippmann), Abraham, Isaac, Babette, Rosalie, and Sarah. He married his cousin Babet Steinhardt in a ceremony in Baiersdorf in 1848. Together, they had five sons, David Seligman, George Washington Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, Isaac Newton Seligman, and Alfred Lincoln Seligman, as well as four daughters, Frances (married to Theodore Hellman), Helen (married to E. Spiegelberg), Sophia (married to M. Walter), and Isabella (married to Philip N. Lilienthal). Posthumous honors On September 27, 1880, the town of Roller's Ridge (or Herdsville), Missouri, was renamed Seligman, in honor of Joseph Seligman and in recognition of the benefits the railroad had brought to the community. In gratitude, Babet Seligman donated one acre of land and $500 towards the building of a church which still stands near downtown Seligman. Footnotes References External links "Jessie Seligman," Famous American Fortunes and the Men who Have Made Them by Laura Carter Holloway (1885) Jewish Encyclopedia article The Seligman Family in the Civil War and After "Seligman, Jesse," The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography pub. J. T. White Company (1893) Vol.4 p. 226 The Seligman Legacy 1819 births 1880 deaths American bankers American financiers American railway entrepreneurs Businesspeople from Pennsylvania German emigrants to the United States 19th-century German Jews People from Erlangen-Höchstadt People from Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania University of Erlangen-Nuremberg alumni Burials