Lincoln Home

[Eva Elisabeth]

Good question, Roger. I was wondering the same. Wiki says:
"A what-not is a piece of furniture derived from the French étagère, which was exceedingly popular in England in the first three-quarters of the 19th century. It usually consists of slender uprights or pillars, supporting a series of shelves for holding china, ornaments, trifles, or what not, hence the allusive name. In its English form, although a convenient piece of drawing room furniture, it was rarely beautiful. The early mahogany examples are, however, sometimes graceful in their simplicity."

(I love the wording of the last two sentences. Very polite way to express an inconvenient opinion.)

On the "furniture site" is written:
"Two whatnots are visible in the 1861 Leslie's drawings of the Parlor. The one in the northwest corner of the parlor may be a triangular shaped corner whatnot, although its shape is not clear from the drawings. One mid-nineteenth-century wall whatnot (now found in the Lincoln Home), a corner one in the Chicago Historical Society, and a whatnot owned by the Melvin family have a history of Lincoln ownership."

One of Leslie's drawings of the Parlor is above, this is one other I found:
   
I think the whatnot is the shelf in the front on the right, and northwest corner refers to the viewpoint of standing in front of the house.