Half that old pitcher

I found this ancient metal pitcher lying on its side and half covered with leaves last fall, and while I'm sure it had a story to tell about its owners and how they used it over the years, the old thing was soon covered over by snow and I forgot about the mystery. But it emerged from the cold case file today, when I found it—well, half of it—hung by the nose, er, spout, on a small Sassafras shrub. There was plenty of recent chainsaw and brush-cutting activity in the area, so I'm guessing that the vulnerable piece of kitchenware was split in two either by the vibrations or the blade of some sort of gas-powered machinery. One of the workers, perhaps as a warning to be careful of hidden debris or maybe in memory of something he recognized, affixed the pitcher to the branch. Now we have two mysteries.