The City of Napa was founded by Nathan Coombs in 1847. It was not the plan of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. He had paid to survey for a township down river at Soscol Landing where riverboats could turn around. The Napa town site was surveyed by James M. Hudspeth on property Coombs had received from Nicolas Higuera, original holder of the Rancho Entre Napa Mexican land grant. The first business establishment in the town was a saloon built by Harrison Pierce, a former miller at the Bale Grist Mill. Napa's first general store was opened a year later in 1848 by Joseph P. Thompson. The first record of a ship navigating the river was the "Susana" in 1842. John Sutter's schooner the "Sacramento" landed in 1844 to pick up a load of lime and deliver passengers. By 1850 the "Dolphin" became the first passenger steamship to navigate the Napa River in order to open another path of commerce.