Ira Elias Merrill, born at Alder, Erie County, New York, in 1835, was the son of Austin and Laura Wilder Harris Merrill and became the first person buried in the Smithfield Cemetery. He was killed in an Indian attack on July 29, 1880, as he and his brother Solyman were returning from the hills east of Smithfield with a load of brush to be used on the bowery for the community pioneer day celebration. Hostilities between the pioneers and the Indians began near the site, and in the skirmish a settler from Franklin, Idaho, was also killed and several Smithfield pioneers were wounded.