Introduction

Biography

Douglas was the son of George Hanes Rights and Em­ma Lou­ise Jones, and hus­band of Ce­cil Le­ona Bur­ton.

He gra­du­at­ed from the Sa­lem Boys School (1905); the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Ca­ro­li­na (AB 1913); the Mo­ra­vi­an Theo­lo­gic­al Se­mi­na­ry in Beth­le­hem, Penn­syl­van­ia (1915); and the Di­vi­ni­ty School of Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty (Ba­che­lor of Sac­red Theo­lo­gy, 1916).

He was or­dained in 1916 and served at the First Mo­ra­vi­an Church in Greens­bo­ro, North Ca­ro­li­na. In 1918, he be­came an Ar­my chap­lain, and in 1919, pas­tor of the Tr­in­ity Mo­ra­vi­an Church in Sa­lem, where he stayed the rest of his life.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of North Ca­ro­li­na at Cha­pel Hill has an ar­chae­olo­gi­cal col­lect­ion named af­ter Rights.

Works

• A Voy­age Down the Yad­kin-Great Pee­dee Ri­ver, with Floyd Ro­gers (Win­ston-Sa­lem, North Ca­ro­li­na: 1928)
• Yadkin Pas­sage, with Floyd Ro­gers
• The Trad­ing Path to the In­di­ans (The North Ca­ro­li­na His­to­ri­cal Re­view: vol­ume 8, num­ber 4, Oc­to­ber 1931)
• The Am­eri­can In­di­an in North Ca­ro­li­na (Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 1947)
• The Be­gin­ning of Betha­ba­ra in Wa­cho­via, the First Mo­ra­vi­an Set­tle­ment in North Ca­ro­li­na (Win­ston-Sa­lem, North Ca­ro­li­na: Wa­cho­via His­to­ri­cal So­ci­ety & Old Sa­lem, 1953)
• Records of the Mo­ra­vi­ans in North Ca­ro­li­na, with Ade­laide L. Fries (Ral­eigh, North Ca­ro­li­na: State De­part­ment of Ar­chives and His­to­ry, 1954)