Windows, windows ... How many windows?

Felton, California

This illustration of the Big Trees Grove hotel is from the 1879 book entitled, Santa Cruz County, California:  Illustrations.  It shows not only the first hotel building constructed by John Hooper around 1876, but also the Fremont Tree. There are also a couple of other items of note. Though the opening of the Fremont Tree has grown smaller over the past 150 years, this illustration certainly exaggerates its original appearance.

First hand visitor accounts differ widely on the number of windows cut into the base of the hollow Fremont Tree; from one to three. Today the only trace left of such a window is located across from the tree's entrance. With the opening now completely grown over, viewed from the interior, the window looks like a shelf.  

Interestingly, this illustration shows a window located to the left of the entrance. And it also appears to have a glass window pane as was described by Lady Duffus Hardy in her 1882 Through Cities and Prairie Lands: Sketches of an American Tour. Speaking of the tree's supposed earlier inhabitants she said that "[o]n one side they had inserted a glass window, which is still there, and, strange to say, unbroken."