From all I know, the phrase 'How about X?' hadn't supplanted the older equivalent 'What about X?' until the 19th Century, at the earliest. But I'm not so well-versed in English spoken in earlier times as to be able to authoritatively say that the phrase 'How about X' is an anachronism.
I'm reading a well-written story called The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, by Erica Ridley. Of course, the need to report dialog in language of a bygone time has to be balanced against the need to make the characters feel real, from the perspective of the present day (especially given that the audience would be quick to misunderstand language just a tiny bit away from what is current.) Readers won't expect the protagonists of a period drama to talk like, say, Taylor Swift, but in a romance between women, there's so much subtlety to convey through dialog! It makes it hardly worth the effort to write a period story, but ... it is so much fun! Erica Ridley's stories—this one, anyway—is a lot of fun.
Kay
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