NAAR, David, journalist, born in St. Thomas, Wisconsin, 6 November, 1800; died in Trenton, New Jersey, 25 February, 1880. He belonged to an old family of Portuguese Jews that maintained its family records from the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. He was educated as a merchant in the West Indies, and with his brothers established a commission business in New York, which was destroyed by the fire of 1835. He then engaged in farming near Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and by his general reading and strong oratorical powers soon became a public speaker of note. In the canvass of 1844 he accompanied James Buchanan on an electioneering tour through the state, and when the Polk administration began he was appointed by Mr. Buchanan, then secretary of state, United States consul to St. Thomas, at that time an important commercial centre. On his return in 1848 he maintained his reputation as a popular and effective speaker, and was elected mayor of Elizabeth in 1849, clerk of the house of assembly in 1851-'2, and state treasurer in 1865. He was an ardent Mason, and during the agitation in relation to colored members did much to secure the recognition by the New Jersey grand lodge of the universality of the order. In 1853 he assumed control of the Trenton "True American," and made its influence felt in the state.