In May 1525, the first Anabaptist died for his faith in the canton of Schwyz. A year later Grebel died of the plague away from home, and in January 1527 Manz was publicly executed in Zurich by drowning for the crime of rebaptism. But by that time, two years after the forming of the first congregation, the movement had spread hundreds of miles beyond its starting point through a unique missionary zeal. By May 1526 there was an Anabaptist assembly in Augsburg under the leadership of the highly gifted