The chapel of the Gemeinhaus was used by the congregation for nine years. During this period many of the Indians were baptised there. In 1752 and again in 1753 councils were held here with the representatives of the Nanticoke and Shawnee Indians from the Wyoming Valley. The second place of worship was an extension of the Gemeinhaus, completed in 1751. Here congregations gathered for fifty-five years. Here the gospel was preached by some of the most eminent ministers of colonial days, while the records show that famous visitors sat in the pews. Among them were Governor John Penn; Generals Washington, Amherst, Gage, Gates, and Lafayette; John Hancock, Henry Laurence, Samuel and John Adams, Richard Henry Lee, and many other delegates to the Continental Congress. During the Revolution there were no more earnest patriots than the members of the Moravian Community at Bethlehem. At one time the Single Brethren's House was used for eight months as a hospital, and no charge was made, though in 1779 a bill for repairs was sent which amounted to $358. A letter from David Rittenhouse, received on September 16, 1778, caused great excitement, for he told of the despatch to Bethlehem of all the military stores of Washington's army, carried in seven hundred wagons. This was done because Washington's army had been compelled to fall back on Philadelphia. It was also thought wise to send the bells of Christ Church and of Independence Hall to Allentown, by way of Bethlehem. The wagon on which Independence Bell was loaded broke down on descending the hill in front of the hospital, and had to be unloaded while repairs were being made. The most distinguished patient cared for in Bethlehem was the Marquis de Lafayette, who was brought from Brandywine, and was nursed by Sister Liesel Beckel. Twenty years after the close of the war it was decided that the time had come for the building of a permanent church. The first estimate was made in 1802. At that time it was thought that the total cost would be $11,000. "It is interesting to note how very modern they were in underestimating the probable cost of a church," Bishop Levering says. The actual cost, including the organ, was more than five times the estimate. The excavation for the building was made in March, 1803, by volunteer laborers, to whom the residents of the Sisters' House furnished lunch. The work was completed in two weeks. Then the great foundation walls were laid, six feet thick. For the services of consecration, held from May 18 to May 26, 1806, six thousand people gathered in the village of five hundred inhabitants. On the first day, "at five o'clock in the morning the jubilant note of trombones, trumpets, and other wind instruments from the belfry of the church broke the stillness of the awaking village with a musical announcement of the festival day."