Ancestors
Susannah Gates
d. 1748 · Lunenburg MA
Died 1748
Children include Susannah
Susannah, wife of John Fitch of Lunenburg, was carried to Montreal in July 1748 with her husband and their five children, and did not finish the journey back. The family was ransomed within a few months and came home by way of Providence, in Rhode Island, and she died there on 24 December 1748.
Lunenburg entered it anyway, with the place written in: "Susanna Fitch ye wife of Mr. John Fitch, deceast December ye 24th 1748 at Providence in ye Collony of Rhod Island." She is the only person in that section of the town's death book who died outside Massachusetts.
Five children were born to her at Lunenburg between 1735 and 1747. The youngest, Susanna, was sixteen months old when the raiders came.
Her surname is the one thing about her the records do not supply.
One family fits, without proving anything. Charles O. Gates's genealogy of the Gates family, published in 1898, lists the children of Simon Gates, born in 1666, who married Hannah Benjamin of Stow in Massachusetts on 4 May 1688. Among them is "Susannah, m. ___ Fitch," with no dates and no husband's given name. A daughter of a marriage of 1688 would have been the right age to marry John Fitch about 1734, and Stow lies within twenty miles of Lunenburg. It supports the Gates name that Chase gave in 1928. It does not prove it.
Sources
The Early Records of the Town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, including that part which is now Fitchburg, 1719-1764 (Fitchburg, 1896), archive.org earlyrecordsofto00lune · deaths, page 344
The Early Records of the Town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, including that part which is now Fitchburg, 1719-1764 (Fitchburg, 1896), archive.org earlyrecordsofto00lune · births, page 287
Rufus C. Torrey, History of the Town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts (Fitchburg, 1865), archive.org historytownfitch00torrrich · page 50
Charles Otis Gates, Silas Gates of Stow, Mass., and the Descendants of his Son Paul Gates of Ashby, Mass. (Boston, 1907), archive.org silasgatesofstow00byugate · Addenda, page 110
Cunningham's History of the Town of Lunenburg from the Original Grant, December 7th 1719 (typescript), archive.org cunninghamshistoeh00cunn · page 250
The Early Records of the Town of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, including that part which is now Fitchburg, 1719-1764 (Fitchburg, 1896), archive.org earlyrecordsofto00lune, births page 287 and deaths page 344 · Cunningham's History of the Town of Lunenburg from the Original Grant, December 7th 1719 (typescript), archive.org cunninghamshistoeh00cunn, page 250 · Rufus C. Torrey, History of the Town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts (Fitchburg, 1865), archive.org historytownfitch00torrrich, page 50 · Charles Otis Gates, Silas Gates of Stow, Mass., and the Descendants of his Son Paul Gates of Ashby, Mass. (Boston, 1907), archive.org silasgatesofstow00byugate, Addenda page 110 · John Carroll Chase, Seven Generations of the Descendants of Aquila and Thomas Chase (Derry, 1928), archive.org sevengenerations00chas, fifth generation, no. 127 · Vital Records of Bradford, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Topsfield, 1907), archive.org vitalrecordsofbr00brad (searched: no Gates in the town)
If Susannah Gates is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Susannah Gates (d. 1748)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/susannah-gates-1748-fc5804.