tisha, Congratulations on your wonderful find! I love these old machines. I think they have so much character. Not exactly sure about the extra piece but it looks like it could be a knee lift. See if there is some place where the right knee would be when sewing. There may be a place for the round end to slip in. When pushed against with the knee, it may lift the presser foot up and you're able to sew items turning them with your hands and not having to use a hand to raise the pressure foot. This is usually used when quilting.

Either this is not the complete frame, or it's very unusual. I collect and also use treadle sewing machines, and I've never seen one yet where the wheel exceeds the frame height. The drawers on old treadles with cabinets dropped down to either side of the frame, and did not sit on top of it, thus raising the height that much. Lots of machinery in the pre-motor era ran by treadle, not just sewing machines, but for industrial use, they weren't that fancy. The wheel must be accomodated for somehow,. It does not protrude past the bottom of the table base, ever, nor does the part of the cabinet with drawers ever sit on the frame.......just the flat bed of it. Go google pictures of treadle sewing machines and see what I mean.

I can tell you the "new automatic" on the singer sewing machine refers to the automatic locking drawers pn the cabinet. I lnow because I have one handed down from my Mom

The new sewing cabinets with the airlift mrchanism are very expensive. Have you priced them? They run anywhere from $600 to $2000. The cheaper ones are just a basic cabinet--no drawers. Most are built as many things are these days with pressed board and a thin veneer of wood. When I bought my new machine a couple of years ago, I looked on line at them all and decided to adapt my old cabinet. Most of the makers have on line sites and you could look through them and see