Susanna was born in Brookline, Province of Massachusetts Bay, on March 5, 1708.
[1] Her paternal grandparents were Dr. Thomas Boylston and Mary (née Gardner) Boylston,[2][3][4] and her maternal grandparents were Benjamin White and Susanna (née Cogswell) White.
[5] The Boylstons were one of the most respectable families in New England and among her relatives was cousin Ward Nicholas Boylston, a benefactor of Harvard College, and uncle Zabdiel Boylston, the celebrated Physician who performed the first surgical operation by an American physician and was known for inoculating hundreds of people in Boston during a severe smallpox outbreak.
Historian David McCullough notes that no writings of hers survive, though it is known that others would often read to her, suggesting that she might have been illiterate.
Susanna died in Quincy, Massachusetts, on April 21, 1797, around a month into her son's presidency.