Editing Wandering Family (section)

==History==
McKinney distinguished the Wandering Family from an earlier Marion County Black Hand society. He dated the earlier group to 1908, identified Frank Pisconeri as its president and wrote that prosecutions suppressed it for several years. He placed the next appearance of organized Black Hand activity in 1921, when investigators identified Water Street in East Fairmont as a headquarters and connected crimes there to activity in Clarksburg.<ref name="McKinney" />

According to McKinney, police seized an Italian-language constitution, bylaws and meeting minutes. The organization had Fairmont and Clarksburg branches and officers including a president, secretary and designated executioner. Its Fairmont headquarters was behind a barber shop on Water Street. McKinney attributed extortion, brothel operation, narcotics activity and the dynamiting of at least ten Fairmont homes to the organization.<ref name="McKinney" /> The West Virginia Encyclopedia independently describes Black Hand extortion of Italian immigrants and businessmen in the region and reports that eight members were arrested in Harrison County on February 11, 1923, after several alleged gangland killings.<ref name="eWV" />